History Main / SoulJar

* In ''Comicbook/BlackestNight'', Nekron embodies the cosmic void that predates life. As an incarnation of nothingness, his mere existence is an impossibility. And indeed it is impossible without an anchor of sorts tying him to the physical plane. That anchor happens to be the first Black Lantern, Black Hand. [[spoiler:Reviving Black Hand with the White Light of Life sends Nekron back to the void.]]

* In ''Comicbook/LokiAgentOfAsgard'' [[spoiler:Verity Willis]]' soul (well, technically story) got [[YourSoulIsMine forcibly transferred]] into a gem on Loki's bracelet. Her body died in the process but she gained an intangible/indestructible ghostly form. This happened because [[ComicBook/SecretWars2015 the universe was ending]], she was more portable that way and Loki had strange thought processes and consent issues.

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Angel}}'', a vampire has his heart surgically removed so that Angel can't stake him. Unusually for this trope, he is eventually defeated not by locating and destroying his heart, but by waiting until the time limit was up.
** There's also the literal jar where Angel's soul was sealed to bring Angelus out temporarily.
** In ''Angel & Faith'': [[spoiler:Angel is using himself as a Soul Jar for pieces of Giles' soul, as a prelude to resurrecting him]].

* In the TV show based on Jim Butcher's ''Series/TheDresdenFiles'' series, a condemned wizard known as Bob is imprisoned in his own skull after performing magic to raise the dead. In the original books, he's an air spirit bound to a skull.

* On ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'', after Ray's body is [[DemonicPossession possessed by Neron]], Nora and Constantine manage to [[ToHellAndBack rescue his soul from Hell]]. However, since Neron is still residing in Ray's body, the only form Ray's soul can take in the material world is as one of the coins demons use to barter souls back and forth.

* In ''Series/OnceUponATime'':

* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Return to Tomorrow" had some of these in which the alien survivors of an apocalyptic war remained, and then swapped consciousnesses with members of the ''Enterprise'' crew, trapping Kirk and Spock in the jars.

* ''Series/{{Warehouse 13}}'': Some of the artifacts contain more of their original owner's personality than others.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'', Dr. Orpheus attempts to resurrect Hank and Dean but learns that Dr. Venture kept [[CloningBlues clones of them]] and used a [[BrainUploading device to record their memory synapses and download their minds to clone bodies]], which ended up [[PostModernMagick housing their souls as well]].

** The Soulgems that are attached to the forehead of every mortal and Exalted in Autochthonia is a variant that captures the soul upon death, so they can be recycled in a new body. For an Alchemical Exalted to be successfully created, a soulgem containing a heroic soul is needed.

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!!Examples

* ''[[Franchise/{{Nasuverse}} Type Moon]]'' example: [[spoiler:Zouken Matou]] is a worm-user whose body is made completely of (you guessed it) worms. [[spoiler:So long as he keeps his worms fed and the master worm containing his soul is safe, killing his apparent body does nothing, as it can be replaced with more worms, though by this time in [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Fate/stay night]] his magic is reaching its limit, and he will eventually be unable to sustain the amount of humans he needs to consume to stay alive.]] His mind and soul have also decayed to the point where he doesn't even remember ''why'' he wants to be immortal.

* In ''Manga/SazanEyes'', a "Wu" is the formerly-human servant of a member of the mystical, three-eyed Sanjiyan race. The Sanjiyan holds onto the Wu's soul, meaning that, as long as the Sanjiyan survives, the Wu will just regenerate from all damage. The main character Yakumo Fujii is a newly created Wu, bonded to the Sanjiyan Pai, and he learns just how immortal he is the hard way -- ''many, many times''. To the point where the series could be summarized as "Yakumo is coughing up blood AGAIN."

* The Sacred Urn in the ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'' series is said to contain the soul of Ama Fey, founder of the Fey clan and inventor of the [[WillingChanneler Kurain Channeling Technique]], and that the clan's spiritual powers will last for as long as the soul is inside the jar. That said, Mia Fey refers to this as a "fairy tale" and considering that there's at least three confirmed cases of the jar being smashed to pieces and sloppily reassembled, with no apparent ill-effects on the clan's ability to channel spirits, it's heavily implied she's right.

* In ''VisualNovel/FleuretBlanc'', [[spoiler:the judges]] believe prized possessions to be this if the attachment is great enough, which is why [[spoiler:they kill members]]. There's no indication that this is anything more than a delusion, however.

* In a variation, Charles Dalimar in the ''[[VideoGame/MysteryCaseFiles Return to Ravenhearst]]'' casual game uses a Soul Jar consisting of ''other people's'' souls, plus [[spoiler:his own disembodied heart]]. This has evidently allowed him to remain in the world for generations, long after he should have died of old age. Charles apparently learned this trick from his father Alister; in ''Fate's Carnival'' we learn that Alister can only be killed by destroying a specific book.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''

* The Sacred Urn in the ''VisualNovel/AceAttorney'' series is said to contain the soul of Ama Fey, founder of the Fey clan and inventor of the [[WillingChanneler Kurain Channeling Technique]], and that the clan's spiritual powers will last for as long as the soul is inside the jar. Considering that there's at least three confirmed cases of the jar being smashed to pieces and sloppily reassembled, with no apparent ill-effects on the clan's ability to channel spirits, this is implied to be little more than a bit of folklore.

* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'':
** The Susano'o Unit serves as this for multiple people. The unit is a mechanical suit of armor that requires whoever enters into it have their soul installed into it, not their body. [[spoiler:[[MagnificentBastard Terumi]]]] was an A.I. within the unit then gained sentience, but he ejected himself from it long before the Dark War, becoming a literal ghost. Later on, the storyline shows that a dying [[spoiler:[[JerkAss Jin]]]] was transferred into the unit by Rachel, becoming [[spoiler: the future member of the Six Heroes [[HeroAntagonist Hakumen.]] The reason Terumi chose not to stay within the Susano'o unit was that he was trying to destroy Amaterasu, and remaining within it would bind him to the very Master Unit he was antagonizing.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Shivers}}'', each Ixupi is bound to a jar closed with a talisman. When one is reassembled, it will [[SealedEvilInACan seal it away]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/RudolphAndFrostysWinterInJuly'', the evil wizard Winterbolt's ice scepter ended up being the source of his life as well as his power. Once it was shattered and his powers destroyed, he ended up turning into a tree.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', this is inverted with the red talismans Mei's female relatives wear. The talismans contain their panda spirits, not their own souls. Once the ritual is done, the aunties & cousins cannot transform into giant red pandas unless their talismans are broken, an act which returns the panda spirit to the body.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' the Eldar race carry Soul Stones on their persons, to avoid their Souls being consumed by Slannesh, the Great Devourer, upon their deaths. These Soul Stones are then transferred to the Infinity Circuit upon the death of the eldar carrying it where their soul is released. To help, among other things, guide the younger eldar, and power their Craftworld. In times of great need these Souls can be called back from the Infinity Circuit and placed into man-sized or huge constructs known as Wraith Guard and Wraith Lords respectively. The construct bodies can be destroyed but as long as the Soul Stone is intact, so is the soul. The Necron consist of an entire army of soul jars, each Necron unit containing the soul of a Necron. Unfortunately, that means every time a Necron is damaged and repaired it loses a fragment of its soul.

* In the ''VideoGame/BaldursGate2'''s expansion Throne of Bhaal, one of the main antagonist, the Fire Giant Yaga-Shura, is made [[NighInvulnerability invincible]] by a ritual removing his heart and protecting it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'', a person's life is measured by a timepiece. Charlie steals his after death and winds it back up again, returning to life. This has the downside of meaning he'll go to Hell when he finally kicks it again, but he's not too concerned, since as long as the watch keeps ticking he's effectively immortal. [[spoiler:It eventually stops working due to extensive water damage, condemning Charlie to Hell. But he gets saved later because he [[HeroicSacrifice risked his own life]] to save Anne Marie]].

The trope itself, however, is OlderThanDirt - it appears in the ancient Egyptian ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_Two_Brothers Tale of Two Brothers]]'', where one of the brothers survives his death by hiding his heart on a tree for the other to restore later.

Compare BrainInAJar and BrainUploading for science fiction equivalents. See also FightingAShadow, AnimatingArtifact and FantasticFragility. Not to be confused with CrystalPrison, where a person is trapped in a gem.

%%* The Resurrection Ships in the re-imagined ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}''.
* ''Series/BabylonFive'' had Soul Hunters, beings who sought to preserve knowledge and wisdom by capturing and maintaining the souls of the dying. This causes serious issues with the Minbari, who believe that their souls are [[{{Reincarnation}} reincarnated]] in the bodies of later generations of Minbari (and there is some evidence -- although not perfect evidence -- to believe that this is literally true), and that the Soul Hunters' preservation process prevents that reincarnation.

* Karla, the Grey Witch in ''Roleplay/RecordOfLodossWar''. Her soul is actually housed in a circlet with two red eyes embedded in it. The exact circumstances by which she ended up in this state are unclear, but she can possess anyone wearing the circlet, and she does seem able to move alone to some limited degree so as to possess someone else, such as when she was forced off Leylia and had to switch over to Woodchuck. In the manga, Karla's circlet is apparently unable to move at all. Woodchuck takes up the circlet willingly out of self-loathing.

* Myth/RussianMythologyAndTales gave us Koshchei the Immortal (see above), the UrExample of a lich, whose death/mortality was hidden in a needle on a remote magical island.

[[folder:Fairy Tales]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', this is inverted with the talismans Mei's female relatives wear. The talismans contain their panda spirits not their own souls and they can't transform into giant red pandas unless their talismans are broken returning the panda spirits to their bodies.

* Cardinal in ''Webcomic/FindersKeepers'' has his kept in a compass.

* ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'': Although Celty lives separately from her head, she worries that if it's destroyed, it might also kill her. Whether or not that's actually true has yet to be seen, but trying to kill her the normal way definitely [[HealingFactor doesn't work]].

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}} Next'' has the Pledge Stone, a contract between a human and a Mazoku. As long as the Pledge Stone is intact the human is immortal.