What the Devil?

We already know from our time in the Inferno that Dante established a vision of Hell that holds true to this day. We also know that many of his interpretations have not held up as well, cheifly being the diminishing of Satan.

Looney Tunes, "Devil's Feud Cake"



South Park

     We often see Satan as a malicious force of temptation and evil, with red skin, horns, a goatee, and impeccable skills on the fiddle. Despite Dante's rather ingenious way of showing how internally weak the Devil is, he's always coniving in popular culture.
    
     John Milton's 15th Century epic Paradise Lost speaks from Lucifer's point of view for a fair stretch of the tale. Satan is presented as a tragic hero, though still antagonistic. If that sounds really risky for an author to do, well it is. Satan's part of the story is about his unsuccessful rebellion in Heaven and sub sequent rallying of the Dark Angels in Pandaemonium. Lucifer leads his men from the front lines and rallies them with his power over the spoken word just as well as epic protagonists like Odysseus. If Milton's verses on the "behind the scenes" of God's will parallel with Dante's, then this portrayal of Satan polarizes them equally. It has also raised quite a stir among scholars, as they debate the meaning behind Milton's words.                                                                        20

Satan in Paradise Lost    

Hades vs. Satan

     Long before Lucifer took up his fiddle, a god named Hades presided over a similar kingdom of death. But not as similar as some believe. Even the nigh-infallible Dante drew somewhat unfair parallels between the orignal Dark Angel and Greece's God of Death (though this was likely due to the fact that even back then people thought the Greek myths were cool).

Satan in the Inferno

     Part of the Greek origin myth tells of how Zeus freed his brothers and sisters from the stomach of their father Cronus, thus overthrowing the titans. Zeus and two of his brothers then divided the world into three and drew lots over sovereignty. Zeus became king of the heavens and everything under the sun. Poseidon won lordship over the seas, and the third brother, named Hades, "the unseen," by the humans, gained the Underworld.                                                     12

And who wouldn't trust this guy?

     The Underworld is not Hell. All dead went to the Underworld, regardless of morality. If you did wrong, there were Hellish places for you to stay, but it wasn't the norm. Regardless of this, death was still scary. Hades became a name whispered, much as we don't speak of Hell in regular conversation.

     There is very little written about Hades, likely attributed to his less revered and more feared reputation. There is only one piece of evidence to suggest Hades was anymore violent or dark or evil than his kin. This would be the tale of Persephone and how Hades wooed her to be his bride with a pomegranate.

     So, the bottom line is that while Satan is an evil lord of evil evilness, Hades is just doing his job. Modern culture tends to show Hades with shades of his devilish counterpart.

How to be Evil (or not) by Brian Perkins

     Have you ever heard of an anti-hero or an anti-villain? I've always been somewhat confused as to what the difference was. At a glance, they seem like the same intermediate step between evil and good, but there is a difference.

     So, you have a good guy. He does good things in uncompromisingly good ways. He's polite, he follows the rules, and he will never go against his beliefs to accomplish his goal. As you travel down the ladder the hero gaets a little more tarnished; he may have a tragic past, or may have questionable methods.                                                           15 22 1

     The anti-hero takes this a step further. He has good goals/intentions, but is willing to do potentially bad things to accomplish them. Alternatively, he may believe in "good," but doesn't agree with the laws, and so he takes justice into his own hands.

     If an anti-hero does good things in a bad way, then an anti-villain does bad things with a strong moral fiber. His goals fit the "evil" standard, but there are things he will not do, lows he shan't sink to, in pursuing those goals. Anti-heros and anti-villains walk a fine line between good and evil.

     Then you have sympathetic villains. These guys are really evil, but the reason they became evil, or their behavior, warrants your pity or remorse.

     Finally, there are the completely irredeemably evil characters. They kick puppies, they twirl mustaches, and they do it with a smile on their face.

     Literarily speaking, there are a number of shades of grey in between the black and white of moral struggle. The "greyer" a character is, the more rounded of a persona they may be.

Writing Your Inner Self

     Sometimes when an author is writing a book or a movie, he will insert him/herself into the story. This can be literal, like Stan Lee or , or it can be more discreet.

     Often times a character based on the author appears in the book. Even if the character doesn't outwardly seem like their real-life counterpart, they may reflect the author's inner-self. What does this mean? Maybe it's the author at a different point in his life, or maybe it's a persona adopted by the author's mind. M. Night Shyamalan frequently gives himself nigh omnipotent roles in his movies, for example.                                                                                                                                     21 18

     Dante and other writers (like Stephen Colbert) take this a step further by using their own names. For example, Dante the Florentine writer wrote Commedia, starring a Florentine writer named Dante. They are essentially the same person, only the real Dante probably didn't vacation in Hell.

The Phantom of the Opera

So, when your thinking of Halloween music, there's a lot of spooky pipe organs, right?

This is only marginally related to that topic.

     First written as a novel by Gaston Leroux in 1909 France, Le Fantome de l'Opera was similar to Frankenstein in that it sold very poorly when first published. What the novel lacked in any literary signifigance though was more than made up for by its musical adaptations.

     The first musical was Ken Hill's British Phantom of the Opera. During one performance Hill was aproached by Andrew Lloyd Webber to establish a Broadway version. In 1988 Webber's own version of Phantom opened.

     Phantom is a macabre love story about a female actor named Christine who is bedeviled by a mysterious admirer named Erik that lives beneath the Opera House. It's not exactly a horror by any stretch, but it has dark elements that win it over many a horde of (often teenage female) fans. Michael Crawford made his name in America off of the role of Erik.                                11 25 15

     Today Webber's play is the longest running ticket on Broadway, by over 2500 shows, as well as the first to surpass 10,000 performances. It is considered (admittedly by its own writers' calculations) to be the single highest grossing entertainment venture ever conceived, making 5.1 billion dollars.

     The connection to literature is that Phantom is a classic, at least by any theater teacher's terms, in the ranks of Shakespeare. Though Leroux's novel was a flop, its legacy will likely live forever.

The Frankenpost

     In 1818, Mary Shelley anonymously published Frankenstein, a horror that would one day greatly influence monster media. And seeing as next week is Halloween, I figure I could write a breif blog post about it.
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     Mary Shelley's name was not on the first edition of Frankenstein, as it was still uncommon for women to write books. Reviews were mixed, with some praising its ingenious writing style and others panning its dark and sometimes meandering plot. Still, the public instatnly latched on to it, and it still holds up today.
 
     Many of the now commonplace elements of horror literature (mad scientists, reanimated corpses, dark and stormy nights, etc.) weren't the norm before Frankenstein. Of course, the monster himself has become a staple of the modern Halloween scene. Nowadays he looks a little different then the meat puppet Shelley envisioned, but he's there nonetheless. Next week, gentle bloggers, is actual Halloween.So I have something special planned.

Well, not particularly. It's just Halloween themed again.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

     Sinfeld prides itself with being a show about nothing, a term this blogger doesn't entirely subscribe to. But before there was Sinfeld, and by extension most other shows about nothing, there was Cheers.

     Cheers was an early entry into the ensemble cast genre. Taking place in a (sort of*) real life bar in Boston, the show dealt with a number of regular patrons with unique quirks. The bar itseld served the "Jerry's apartment" role, a room with essentially one camera angle that people would randomly burst into.
     Frasier (star of the spin-off of the same name) was a down-on-his-luck psychologist, Norm was the typical barfly (literally everyone knew his name), and Cliff was a mailman who loved quoting facts and figures. Cliff is also Ham the piggy bank from Toy Story, which you will never be able to unhear if you ever watch the show now.

The "nothing" draw of the show came from the principal action rarely leaving the bar. Someone would bring up a conversation, the rest would join in, rinse and repaeat. There was, of course, an overarching plot like Mr. Sinfeld's sitcom, but those were the small potatoes.
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*The outside of the bar used in stock footage is the real Cheers bar in Boston. The inside where the action took place was filmed on a setpeice. The decor of the Cheers set was then converted into a sports-bar like setting in Boston's Quincy Market.