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Soul-based attacks, Do they work in "Atheist" Universes?

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This came into my interest when discussing Soul-Based attacks in the chat.

Would Soul-based attacks work on a universe that does not have a God or Souls?

For example, if i made a manga, and in that manga, there are no God nor souls, should i tolerate Sailor Moon coming out of nowhere and Soul-haxing my MC?


In my opinion, i think it would NOT work.

Mostly to avoid some Theological debates between the two autors, a world that does not follow the rules of another should be completely inmune to Soul-based attacks.

What do you think?
 
Well, I think that, of course, Soul attacks doesnt work agaisnt soul-less beings (also, i would reffer to them as simply "soul-less verses" to avoid any controversy xvx), but thats it, the "beings" themselves are the unafected ones and theyre simply treated as so.

On the other hand... I simply can't recall any verse where all its character are soul-less.
 
Well, most verses are kinda religious.

So, i have to...you know, look for some.


Or, as the Thread states, once i finish my manga.
 
well, it goes down to 2 or 3 things, the first would be "not having a god doesnt nescesarily mean the characters dont have soul", "characters not believing in souls or gods doesnt nescesarily mean they dont have souls".

thus, they should actually demonstrate that they indeed dont possess a soul (which is already hard as hell, since if the verse doesnt have souls, theres no excuse for a "soul buster" to even be there in the first place) as simple statements dont define characters as "soul attack inmune", and "having a soul" is like a standard character trait unless stated otherwise (much like "being alive" being replaced with "being undead, a ghost or something like that")
 
By soul removal, if you mean death induction then yes it works. If a verse doesn't believe magic doesn't mean magic won't work on that verse.
 
But, if that universe does not indeed have souls, and they are right that God does not exist on that verse?
 
Equilization almost neccesitates that soulhax would still work (I should note SM Star Seeds are not conventional Souls). If we are to assume that characters have no souls because they've never been shown to, then we are essentially saying the characters verses could have entirely different structures in which case the two verses become ENTIRELY incomparable. What's to say Energy Blasts would still work? After all in MY verse energy blasts don't exist. What's to say one can have use Super Speed, because in MY verse Super Speed doesn't exist.

Verse equalization says that powers need to work exactly as they do in their original verses otherwise the verses become entirely incomparable.
 
^This. Soul attack won't work towards a bunch of soul-less robot purely driven by AI or soul-less eldritch abomination character.
 
If being Soul-less is treated as a plot-point, it would be respected?


Ex. In MC´s universe, Gods do not exist, but when he travels to a different reality where they do exist, that God is unable to affect his soul.
 
Aurugermil said:
^This. Soul attack won't work towards a bunch of soul-less robot purely driven by AI or soul-less eldritch abomination character.
Well, robots are aritifical life forms and not even theists believe they have soul. However, in fiction just because one verse doesn't have specific hax, that doesn't mean hax from other verse won't work there.

Anyways, for humans verse equalization means they have souls, and not having souls is just the limitation of that verse. Hax is not limited by your religious belief
 
right what imperator said, for a character to be inmune to soul hax, he should actually demonstrate it in some way, but for a verse to have a character that manipulates souls somehow,just to demonstrate the nonexistence of souls is already a paradox (unless you have something like a multiverse where characters from one verse try to manipulate the souls of the other, just to find the atempt is futile, but having a fully fully soul-less verse and actually demonstrate it is kinda impossible)
 
I didn't know vswiki is bringing RELIGION to determine if some kind of hax would work or not.

That said it depends on the verse, character etc.
 
I think humans can't be immune to soul hax without soul hax. Machines (for example Ghost from Macross verse) and AIs (Hatsune Miku?) are probably soulless by default if not said otherwise.
 
Eh, pretty sure Miku has a Soul in many of her incarnations, even when she is just an AI/Robot.
 
Yamatohime said:
Do we have proofs? =)
The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku is a nice example, in that she sing her entire heart out in tongle-twisting rapid-firing verse upon her deletion. You can't simply do that if you don't have a heart, and thus, soul. Kokoro is also another nice example, where at in the end, Rin gained heart and cried for the very first time before singing the song back to the past. The ending of the Servant of Evil, Daughter of Evil series also have the sisters reincarnate into Rin and Len.
 
^ I don't really remember that but most likely it is the creator of the song and the CGI persons handywork or whatever tech they put to make her, who put their heart and soul towards their creation. Therefore there is no fictional creation ever that doesn't have soul since they carry with them a piece of their creator soul :^)
 
I know this thread is old, but I just came across it. I've actually had this thought come to mind myself. I'm working on my own fiction and I came across this problem as well. Because my verse contains alternate universes, and one of the universes contains gods, deities, magic, and the supernature, and another one doesn't. However, there are characters in the latter universe that do have superpowers. They're just not supernatural in nature, and there's also characters where their standard equipment is advanced technology, that's advanced enough to be a match towards some of the characters from the more mystical universe. I ultimately decided that people with soul hax cannot use it against the soulless beings from the other universe, because there would be no soul to manipulate.
 
One verse without souls I can think of off the top of my head is Death Note. Death Note explicitly has no afterlife, and mirrors the author's own view of death.

Also soul manipulation is a problem because different verses have different beings who have souls and who don't have souls. Some verses might have animals with souls, and in other verses animals might be soulless.

Soul manipulation is also problematic for how souls vary across fiction. In DBZ for example, souls are just second physical bodies. There is absolutely no difference between a soul and physical body, so would soul manipulation really work on DBZ characters?


As for determining if a verse has souls or not, or more specifically if a deity exists in the verse or not, yes that is pretty problematic. Just because a deity isn't present or people don't believe in him within the verse doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and can't really be used as evidence for VS debates. The only way to prove a verse has no deity is if the author explicitly states that there is no deity in the verse.

Now if there IS a deity, and the deity explicitly states that souls aren't real, then it's safe to say that souls and soul manipulation isn't a thing for that verse.
 
You are wrong,Beings in Death note have souls, they simply reincarnate without knowledge on thier past lives as shown in Death parade.
 
Mandfireguy21 said:
That's pretty cool. I guess soul should be assumed unless otherwise stated.
you mean death parade the anime? because theres no direct correlation between these two
 
They won't work because a universe full of souless beings have no souls to manipulate.
 
Cropfist said:
They won't work because a universe full of souless being have no souls to manipulate.
regarding this, is "characters have souls/are affected by soul attacks unless splicitly stated otherwise" part of the standard battle assumptions/verse equalization?
 
If a character is directly stated to not have a soul in his/her verse then soul hax should not work. If it is directly stated that in the verse souls do not exist, then soul hax should not work. But if souls are never mentioned whatsoever then soul hax should work due to verse equalization.

That's my view on the subject anyway.
 
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