A character who saves souls from some kind of literal or symbolic hell/limbo. The character might be a preacher, psychologist, psychic or whatever, depending on the setting. In some cases and settings, the saving requires some time and afterthought. In others, a Epiphany Therapy is available.
May or may not be a Heaven Seeker: The saving means peace, closure, and often some kind of good life - but it can be either in this life or in some afterlife or release.
A religious version of The Soulsaver is different from a Soulsaving Crusader in that a Soulsaver does not use the harsh methods that a Soulsaving Crusader employs to "save" people.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- The exorcists in D.Gray-Man, especially Allen. The akuma they're fighting are powered by the souls of the dead, and unless they're destroyed using Innocence, they disappear instead of being redeemed. Some of the organization is a lot more focused on destroying Akuma than saving their souls, though.
- The Guardian Spirit's from Hito Hitori Futari.
- When the Soul Reapers from Bleach destroy a Hollow, they allow its soul to pass on to the Soul Society, so that their souls can later be reborn. Quincys, however, are the antitheses of this trope - when they destroy a Hollow they destroy the soul, too (for a given value of destroy.) note
- Also, the Soul Reapers can only cleanse the soul of crimes committed as a Hollow, as Ichigo learns when he battles one that was a Serial Killer in life. That one went straight to Hell.
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica: This is essentially what the title character becomes at the end of the series. She prevents magical girls being consumed by despair and becoming Witches by taking them and the witches they would have become with her.
Comic Books
- In Chick Tracts, any Christian can save lost souls from certain damnation, casting out evil spirits along the way. Of course, given that it's Chick Tracts, some can go the extra mile to Soul-Saving Crusader.
- The fourth and fifth book of The Sandman revolves around this trope. The fourth being Season of Mist, with Morpheus trying to save his lover from Hell. Not out of love, however, but due to guilt and the realization that he messed up. He had condemned her to hell quite some time ago because she refused his marriage proposal. In terms of moral improvement, he saved (or at least improved) himself.
- In the fifth book, A Game Of You, most of the main characters try to save the protagonist's mind from remaining artificially stuck in a dream. It doesn't work out very well.
Fan Works
- In the Pony POV Series, this is a part of how the afterlife works. Souls who have made it to Elysium are allowed to venture into Tartarus to save loved ones who are inmates there. If they can convince their loved one to accept their crimes were evil and repent for them, they're allowed to take them with them back to Elysium.
Film
- Poltergeist. The psychic Tangina helps a group of ghosts (lost souls) trapped in the astral plane go into the Light.
- In The Sixth Sense, a human and a ghost do this to each other. It is implied that the human goes on to save more lost souls from their limbo.
- In Soul, Moonwind and his associates travel the Zone to help lost souls regain their purpose. They help Joe return to Earth and then help save 22 after they become a lost soul.
Literature
- In Inferno (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle), Benito Mussolini tries to save the souls of people in Hell by helping them escape. At the end of the novel Allan Carpentier takes over his role.
- According to The Bible Jesus dying on the cross saved the souls of all who believe in Him, both those who had died before Him like Abraham and people who came after Him (some interpretations have him literally going To Hell and Back to retrieve the righteous dead).
- In the original Dracula, the vampire-hunting protagonists are said to be saving the souls of the undead from a presumably rather uncomfortable state of limbo.
- Lyra and her daemon, Pan, in His Dark Materials. She sets free the severed daemons of Bolvangar, and even better, saves the rest of the children from that same fate. It turns out her eventual destiny is to open the world of the dead, and its numberless billions of souls, to the rest of the multiverse.
- Part of the Abhorsen's job description in the Old Kingdom series: sending the souls of the recently departed swiftly down the river of Death, and putting the walking Dead to rest again.
- This is the purpose of the Knights of the Cross in The Dresden Files. They will fight people who succumb to Demonic Possession and kill them if necessary, but if they surrender, throw their demonic powers away, and show a desire to atone and repent the Knights are oath-bound to help them with it (even if they're not genuine about it). Sanya, one of the knights, is one of their success stories.
- Inverted in the story "The Warrior", in which one of the daughters of Michael Carpenter, a retired Knight, is abducted and held hostage. When he and Harry apprehend the culprit, Michael is so furious that Harry has to play The Soulsaver, talking his friend down and even offering to kill the kidnapper himself if it has to be done, so long as Michael doesn't befoul his righteous status for the sake of revenge.
- In the Elemental Masters series, one of Sarah's duties as a medium is to help ghosts move out of their gray, dreary limbo and open a passage to Heaven or the pagan Summer Country, depending on their religion and the circumstances of their death.
- In Knowledge Of Angels, Beneditx (and Severo) try to be this for Palinor. They fail.
- A Net of Dawn and Bones has the hell-raiders, an ancient Gnostic faction of Christians deemed heretics by the major Churches who literally raid Hell itself to steal the souls of innocents that have been Rerouted from Heaven. By the time of the novels Myrrh is the only known hell-raider active, and she was stuck in Hell for 25 years while the anchor for her Resurrective Immortality was sealed in a lead box.
Live Action TV
- Ghost Whisperer goes around helping ghosts resolve their conflicts and send them into the light.
Video Games
- In Dante's Inferno, the player can absolve damned historical figures, normal souls and demons, thus releasing them from Hell, and earning holy experience points in the process.
- In World of Warcraft A'dal appears to save a dying crusader from being transformed into one of the Scourge by sending his soul directly to the Light.
- In Fallen London, an optional subplot leads to your character becoming one of these, literally rescuing people's Soul Jars from devils and returning them to their owners.
- Odin in Helheim Hassle is violently protective of the souls of vikings who qualify for Valhalla, this poses a problem for Bjorn who genuinely prefers Helheim to Valhalla and got sent to the latter on a technicality because he landed on a bear while falling of a cliff by accident which Odin interpreted as Mutual Kill fighting a bear, so now Bjorn has to stop Odin from starting a war with Helheim because he won't let Bjorn leave.
Webcomics
- Daughter of the Lilies: As a Wizard and likely Emissary from the Divine, Master Wu can save people who've been possessed by Drath. His powers let him reach into the Black Bug Room where the victim's soul is trapped, but the soul has to choose to leave the Drath's influence, and all he can do is talk them through it
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- One part of a Medium's job in Gunnerkrigg Court is helping those who "stuck" after death and before afterlife, and are inaccessible to Psychopomps, so only mortals can deal with them. Unlike "normal" ghosts (aware of both visible and invisible world and having their own niche), "stuck" people indefinitely exist half in reality, half in their own nightmares and as such aren't easy to approach even in the best circumstances.
