Paradise Lost/WMG
The only book was a Take That the canaanite gods did against the greek ones
Since the hebrew gods are in popular culture flanderized into devils but the greek ones aren't, Moloch and pals payed Milton to write a book where the other pagan gods were demons as well. Unfortunately for them, Milton didn't got the memo and wrote Moloch as a demon as well...
The Satans from the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost and their respective Hells are the same.
In PL, Satan is constantly shrinking and becoming less and less human. He takes the three-faced, mindless form locked in ice after Jesus rejects him as seen in Paradise Regained.
- Satan in the Divine Comedy is huge, though. Then again, in Book X of Paradise Lost (the last time we see him), Satan does appear as a Dragon (obviously referencing the Book of Revelation)...
- He is compared to a Leviathan in the early verses of the Paradise Lost. He's definately huge in both stories.
God really is a tyrant ruling on the principle that Might Makes Right.
Satan's accusations in the first two books are, in fact, spot-on; the assertions that he and the assembled devils are lying are made by the epic voice itself, which is identified repeatedly with the Holy Spirit. In effect, God is being called as the only witness at his own trial; lest we forget, the stated intent of the epic is to "justify the ways of God to men." In Book V, during the War in Heaven, God the Father even says to the Son that "Nearly it now concerns us to be sure/Of our Omnipotence, and with what arms/We mean to hold what anciently we claim/Of deity or empire..." and goes on to call for a decisive counter-offensive, "lest unawares we lose/This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill." He claims in Book VI that he allows the battle to go on for two full days and part of a third in order to glorify the Son (not yet identified as Jesus, since it's still quite some time before he'll come to Earth), but it could also be that he needed that time in order to marshal his power and be sure of a crushing victory. After winning the war, God goes on to mercilessly thwart anyone who might even kind of think about challenging or even disobeying him. He practically micro-manages Satan's temptation of Eve; first allowing Satan out of Hell, then watching serenely as he approaches the newly-formed Earth, not warning Adam and Eve (or, for that matter, any of the angels who were supposed to be guarding them) about the approaching threat, and subsequently maneuvering his angelic servitors justly enough to make Satan angrier at him without actually thwarting his scheme. Add onto all this that, as he says in Book III, he already knows that Eve will succumb to the temptation, and Adam will follow her. In the last two books, Michael gives a narrative of future (Biblical) history in which we see God time and again smack down any mortals who dare to stand up for themselves. The only moral value that works out for anyone is mindless obedience.
This is not to say that Satan is the "good guy," though. He's still petty, invidious, spiteful, and above all vain. But he's more of a Fallen Hero than a Card-Carrying Villain, and looking at the ways God manipulates him throughout the epic, he's clearly being set up for a fall (well, for the Fall). This starts as early as the exaltation of the Son in Book V (this is told as a Flashback, and is chronologically the beginning of the story), where what previously seemed a "republic of Heaven" (to apply Phillip Pullman's phrase in another context) is arbitrarily transformed into a monarchy. Again, no matter how inexplicable and apparently pointless the decrees, the only moral standard of any value is blind obedience. And let's not forget that God has supposedly already foreseen how all of this is going to turn out. He's The Chessmaster, and he's playing both sides.
Of course, there are counter-arguments; Stanley Fish put forth what is probably the most popular modern one in Surprised by Sin. But that's part of what makes PL so much fun.
- There are those (including this troper) whose faith/religion assumes this to be the case...
- Neo-Gnosticism?
Satan's fandom have Stockholm Syndrome.[1]
They love, support, and practically worship Mankind's Arch Enemy in the poem, whose goal is to destroy Humanity, make them suffer, and rob them of their home, birthright, and happiness all to get back at someone else. Furthermore, his fans defend all his lies and evil deeds as truly being in their best interest; they insist it's not really his fault, that he's the one whose been wronged, and they don't want to be rescued, just like the victims in the Trope Namer.
This book was inspired by Satan.
Satan, pissed that people have seen him as a Complete Monster for millenia, wanted to tell his side of the story, and show that Satan Is Good(or at least a Well-Intentioned Extremist.) So he found John Milton and got him to write an autobiography of sorts. However God, not wanting His people to think God Is Evil, prevented Milton from getting the whole story-hence why in Paradise Lost Satan suffered Motive Decay. However, it was enough of an impact to be lead to the popularity of the Satan Is Good trope.
- Or Milton wrote the book for him but threw in a bunch of Take That that Satan (nor, sadly, some of the readers) managed to pick up on.
- Well, Milton does invoke Urania at the start... maybe Satan snuck in instead.
Chaos and Old Night are from the Primordial Chaos.
It would explain where they come from, and why they have a grudge against God: they're pissed at God removing their enviroment.
- ↑ Disclaimer: Take as seriously as all TV Tropes Epileptic Trees.