#lucifer's treachery

[luc1ferian]

Also why has nobody told me India was the first country to land a robot on the south side of the moon successfully you'd think I'd know about this but apparently not

Congrats on that too! 🎉🎉

[cherubchoirs]

If Lucifer smells like a campfire could one have theoretically used the angelic fire he once had to make smores/use him as a campfire?

(see this!)

lucifer would sadly have absolutely TORCHED any marshmallow to ash in his time as a seraph, but actually as the devil....probably could make a s'more on that guy. he's actually still pretty warm to be further aggravated in the cold he's constantly subject to, but not at all as he once was. he also occasionally flares a bit with strong emotion so. filths roasting marshmallows off the devil is what hell is really about. i think.

[magiturge]

this thought has been sitting in my head for awhile,

the information that is learnt from the ultrakill arg being solved, we know that hell itself is actually alive. hell itself is actually the force behind the doors locking and is the one that is modifying the husks such as soldiers and strays. now combining this information with the testaments at the end of most secret levels, we realize the terror that is behind the words : "I HAVE CREATED HELL . . . And now I can no longer unmake it." - from Testament III

god is terrified of the free will that hell itself has gained and then, if we combine that information with what we learned from the testament in 5-S in which god cast lucifer down into hell only to realize what he had done, it's made me think.. since it is apparent that hell has more interest in angels than robots, this due to the eye in 3-2 being more focused on gabriel than v1.. what if lucifer were not a prime soul but was modified by hell itself after being trapped within its domain since being cast out?

[mask131]

Dante’s Hell: The bottom of Hell

Before moving on to the next parts of Dante’s Hell, I want to insist on something I haven’t clearly spelled out before… But in the poem it is make clear that Hell, the Christian Hell depicted by Dante, is the same dimension as the Greco-Roman Underworld. When Theseus and Hercules went into the Underworld, they actually just went into Hell – but a Hell that didn’t have yet all of the sinners it has now since, before Christ’s death, all souls went to Limbo and the other circles were empty, or merely filled with the mythological creatures we get to see in Inferno (Furies, Medusa, Cerberus, etc…).

 XV) The Giants

As our duo arrives at the end of the Eighth Circle, through the murky mist and thick darkness Dante identifies what looks to him like the great towers of a city… Only for Virgil to inform him that these are not towers, but Giants, who stand in the “Well” that is between the Eighth and Ninth Circle – their feet resting at the bottom of Hell and their bodies appearing at the border of the Eighth from the navel upward. Now, what does Dante means by “Giant”? Well, he uses this term to cover both the Greco-Roman “giants” (Giants and other affiliated big-sized monsters “sons of the earth”) and the Biblical “giants” (in the Biblical myth, it is believed that there were giants that existed in the early times of Earth, mostly but not all wiped out by the Great Flood), united here in their “evilness”, as both were seen as hostile, monstrous, destructive species that had to be wiped out. In Dante’s own words, it is because, unlike other “natural” giants like elephants or whales, which just had “brute force” and great size, these Giants had too the gift of “intellect” and an “evil will”, which made them true threats.

The first giant they meet belongs to the “Biblical giant” category – it is Nimrod, the man responsible for the creation of the Babel Tower, and the resulting divine punishment of not two men speaking the same language on Earth. Nimrod has a special punishment in this pit: he is now doomed to speak nonsensical gibberish no one understands, while not understanding the words anyone says – as a reference to the outcome of the Babel Tower. Whenever he is angry, all he can do is blow in some horn he wears around his neck, which causes a great, loud noise. The second giant the duo encounters is Ephialtes from pagan myths, who, for his “rebellion against the almighty Jove and the gods” is now bound with heavy chains twisting his limbs so that he may not move anymore – Virgil mentions Briareus is also suffering from the same punishment. The thing to understand here is that Dante (the author) creates a parallel between the Biblical and Pagan Giants: both are seen as figures that rebelled against a form of divinity and were punished for it. Dante identifies Nimrod’s Babel Tower, a rebellion against the God of the Ancient Testament, with the Gigantomachy and the various Giant rebellions against Jupiter/Jove, ruler of the Roman gods (and while Virgil name-drops the “gods” in plural, there is a clear focus on Jupiter/Jove, making him somewhat the Roman incarnation of the one the Hebrew would call their God). It is another attempt to unite the Inferno’s rivalling sources, Biblical and pagan traditions, with this very prominent concept of the Greco-Romans as being “proto-Christians”.

PLUS, Dante also places a high focus on the motivation of this rebellion: arrogance. Nimrod’s actions, with the Babel Tower, are highlighted as “prideful”, and the Babel Tower stays one of the most famous Biblical fables tied to “the pride before the fall” ; and similarly, Ephialtes’ rebellion against Jove is said to have been born out of an arrogance making him try to match Jove’s power. This all is meaningful in two ways… One, this makes the Giants aligned with the various fallen angels of Hell – who rebelled against God and were punished for it – especially with Lucifer/Satan, THE embodiment of rebellious pride and vicious arrogance, that is located right beyond the Well of Giants. In fact, many people have pointed out that Dante (the character) mistaking the giants for a “city with great towers” is meant to evoke the Walls of Dis, with their great towers, and filled by the various fallen angels and demons. Second, this shows that despite Dante stopping the “seven deadly sins” list at the Walls of Dis, seemingly forgetting the last two vices – he actually still has them in Hell. It is just that Envy and Pride are widespread among the various sins of Malice, and here the Giants embody these two vices perfectly well.

Virgil finally reaches the third giant and the one he wanted to see in the first place: one that can “speak and is not chained”, unlike the previous two, Antaeus (who is apparently in a similar situation to Tityus and Typhon. Virgil says  that these giants are not chained because they did not participate in the “rebellion of the sons of the earth”, aka Greek Giants, against the gods/Jupiter, but still went to Hell for their other various crimes – however, if you know your Greek myth, you know Typhon definitively would be chained… But Dante had a very medieval grasp of the ancient myths, through the prism of both exclusive access to the Roman texts and massive Christian readings of all these texts – so a very… bizarre grasp (the same one that makes him identify Briareus as “having rebelled against the gods during the Gigantomachy”, for some reason).  After bribing Antaeus with some flattery (Virgil promising that Dante will spread the giant’s fame and glory on earth, again some sin of pride here), the giant agrees to take them in his hands and lower them through the dark abyss that is the Pit/Well of Giants, so that they may end up in the ninth and last Circle of Hell…

XVI) The Ninth Circle: Treachery

We have arrived at the last of the Circles of Hell. The Ninth Circle. The smallest of them all, but reserved for the worst of sinners. We are at the bottom of Hell, where the devil dwells. Here, all the rivers of Hell pour into one giant lake, the Lake Cocytus (which IS the Ninth Circle, the same way the Styx marshes ARE the Fifth Circle). Cocytus is however constantly frozen due to the low temperatures and high, cold winds of the area – so you walk on ice rather than earth. This was Dante’s own little play on the very popular and widespread conception of Hell as a place of eternal fire and constant burning – a belief as much in actual Christian religion than in folk customs and popular art. He did play this concept fully with the City of Dis and other places of Hell – but for the very heart of the infernal realm, he decided to do a full reverse and rather have a land of eternal coldness and painful ice. An ice even said to be “more like glass” than actual ice, due to how it doesn’t crack or breaks in any place – it is a perfectly smooth, translucid “endless plain” of glass-like ice. And this ice is the punishment of the sinners, as they are stuck in it, unable to move, suffering the consequences of the extremely low temperatures and freezing winds.

And what is the sin of these damned souls? Treachery. Now treachery is similar to Fraud, in that it is the act of deceiving, tricking, cheating, lying, falsifying, stealing, etc, etc… BUT there is a big difference that Dante is clear about. Fraud is basically deceit towards people that did not place their trust in you. A thief steals from persons he doesn’t know ; a maker of false-money cheats out a system, etc etc… But Treachery, however, is what happens when you commit fraud on someone who expressly placed their faith and trust in you. It is betrayal, and for Dante it is the worst form of evil a man can commit, because while Fraud destroys the “bond of love” that is “natural” and innate between two members of the same species, here two humans, Treachery destroys a special, “extra” bond of trust and love that is not natural but rather made between two specific individuals – and thus to be cherished much more than the simple natural trust between two humans.

Similarly to the Seventh Circle, the Ninth Circle is divided into four “rings”, each of them covering a different form of treachery and betrayal depending on who was the victim of it – the outer ring being the “least worst” treachery, the inner ring the “worst of the worst”. Keep in mind that through this travel, Dante throws in some heavy commentaries about the own civil war, political struggles and social betrayals he witnesses and live through in his life, and putting this into context explains the specific hierarchy he makes here. The outer ring is called “Caina” (after Cain, who killed his brother) and is dedicated to those who were traitors to their family – they are plunged waist-deep into the ice, their upper-body bowing against the strong winds, their teeth constantly chattering. The second ring is Antenora (named after Antenor, the Trojan warrior who betrayed his city to the Greeks during the Trojan war), where the sinners are plunged neck-deep into the ice, their faces “purple with cold”, for they were traitors to their country, their city, or their political party.

The third ring is called Ptolomea (after Ptolemy who killed his father-in-law and brothers-in-law to a feast and killed them ; or maybe after Ptolemy XII for the murder of Pompey) – it is where the traitors to their guests, who broke the sacred law of hospitality, are sent. Only their face pokes out of the ice, constantly stuck contemplating the dark void above the circle, and the harsh winds making their tears turn into ice right into their eyes… Interestingly, by speaking with one of the shades there, the Pilgrim/Wanderer learns that Ptolomea (or Tolomea) is a specific zone of Hell where the souls can end up BEFORE their natural death (evoked here as the work of Atropos, one of the three Moirai/Parcae) – indeed, if someone ends up betraying by breaking the sacred vow of hospitality, sometimes their living souls ends up in Ptolomea while a demon from Hell goes to the surface and inhabits the body of the betrayer… As for the final, inner Ring, it is Judecca, named after Judas – the Ring of those who betrayed their lords, their benefactors and their saviors, punished by being completely frozen into the ice, unable to move. Some are parallel to the surface, other perpendicular with their head or feet up, some even have their bodies “curved” like bows... As all their love in its warmth and life had been destroyed in life, they are now frozen, mute and immobile in eternal coldness, forever…

 XVII) Lucifer

We’ve arrived. The very center of the Ninth Ring, the bottom of Hell. We have arrived… to the one call Dis, Satan or Lucifer. We have arrived to the one who’s fall created this crater that is called “Hell”. We have arrived to the Devil himself.

And… he isn’t sitting on a throne. He is actually stuck in the ice of Cocytus, like the other sinners here. He is stuck in the ice up to his chest, of such an enormous size that even the Giants of the Well could barely match the length of one of his arms, and all the wild, violent, freezing winds of the Ninth Circle, those same ones that keep the ice from returning to water? They are caused by Lucifer’s wings – six huge wings, similar to those of a bat (a parody of the six feathered wings of the seraphim, the supposed highest choir of angels) ; six wings that he constantly flaps around in hope of releasing himself from Cocytus, to no avail. It is something Dante really wanted people to focus on, and his own interpretation of the Christian Devil – he isn’t a king of Hell, he isn’t a true ruler of demons, Hell isn’t his private domain he can do with as he wants. We saw previously in the poem that most of the structure of Hell was ordered by the will and power of God, not by the Devil… Because the Devil was actually the first sinner sent in Hell, the first prisoner of the infernal realm. He is damned, like all of the others, and suffering for his betrayal of God. Dante particularly highly that by showing that Satan is actually constantly weeping… It is “his” Hell yes, as in his eternal punishment, not his “domain”.

Dante also added a very specific and unique aspect to his Devil. “Once the most fair” of all angels, now turned into a “foul” monster by his fall, Dante decided to have the Devil sport three faces on his head, each one a different color: one in the front, bright red, one above his right shoulder, colored a blend of yellow and white, and one other the left shoulder, the color of “the skin of those who live below the river Nile” (aka black). The decision to have Lucifer wear three faces is very clearly a way to show him as a perversion of the Holy Trinity, Christianity’s interpretation of God as manifesting simultaneously through three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The choice of three different colors for the faces has been a subject of debate for a very long time: what would be the meaning of this? Some interpreted these faces as embodying the fundamental sins and manifestations of evil (for example some read it as a manifestation of Aristotle’s tripartite evil as being made of Incontinence, Malice and Bestiality – Dante reused the first two for his Hell hierarchy, and while he mentioned the third category through Virgil’s word, it never appeared in the Circles of Hell) ; other rather chose to see the three faces of Satan as representing the three known continent and human populations at the time (the black face for Africa, made evident by the “Nile” remark ; the pale-yellow face for Asia, and the bright red face for Europe). But the most agreed on and popular theory rather points out that, if the three faces are a parody of the Holy Trinity, then each color must reflect a perversion of the three main features of God. Since God is All-Knowing, the keeper of truth and the highest wisdom in the universe, one face of the Devil represents pure ignorance (black) ; since God is all powerful to the point of omnipotence, a second face represents impotence (the yellowish white) ; and since God is the strongest and purest form of love to exist, the last face represents pure and undiluted hatred (red).

The Devil cannot actually speak because his mouths are full – in each of them is a sinner, that the Devil constantly bites, chews, munches and rips apart, not with his teeth but also with his claws. And the bloody saliva that drips onto the Devil’s chin from this final torture mixes with his tears as they drop to the icy ground of the Cocytus… Who are these sinners? Well none others than the worst traitors of all time, the very embodiment of Treachery itself! On one side you have Judas, aka the one that betrayed the Christ and led to his death – it does make sense that in a Christian Hell he would be seen as the worst of the worst, having betrayed basically God Himself… And on the other side you have Brutus and Cassius. You know, Brutus and Cassius. The guys who plotted to have Julius Caesar murdered. Now you might be wondering: wait, why is the betrayal of Julius Caesar on the same foot as the betraying of Jesus? And if you have been paying attention, you just need to remember what Dante’s mindset is. To take back an image which has been shared a lot on the Internet – Dante was a massive Ancient Rome fanboy. This is why he reused a lot of Ancient Roman literature and legends to create his Hell, and why so many figures of Roman history appear in his Divine Comedy. But to simplify this as just one’s man obsession would be a mistake, because the truth is that it was one NATION’s obsession. We are at the end of the Middle-Ages, at the early times of the Renaissance – an era where the Greco-Roman Antiquity will be “rediscovered” and heralded, among other things, as a golden age of humanity ; but we are especially here in medieval/Renaissance ITALY, which already out of national pride had considered the Roman Empire as THE golden age of Italy, back when it was the greatest and most influential power on Earth, and all Italians glorify this long gone past, or strive to return to it. And Julius Caesar, as the “first of the Roman Emperors” (he wasn’t ACTUALLY an Emperor but he was on his way to become one in all but name, and it was in his honor that the next, actual first emperor of Rome called himself “Caesar”, and that all of the other Emperors also called themselves this), was heralded as a great national and cultural hero, as one of the noblest and best men of Italy AND the founder of the greatest empire and best civilization to have ever been.  Dante here depicts the worst betrayals of history, on both a religious level (Jesus’ betrayal) and historical/civilizational one. This is doubled – well, tripled by two other things to consider. One, Dante’s personal conviction – having lived in a time of civil war and perpetual conflict between independent City-States, Dante hated to see a self-divided, self-destroying Italy, and glorified Ancient Rome as the “great united Italy”. The betrayal of Caesar led to, at least to his knowledge, big first “real” civil war that split Italy and the whole Roman nation into pieces – the civil wars concerned with Caesar’s succession. As such, he considered Brutus and Cassius as the first to have “broken” an unified and pacified powerful Italy. Plus, there is also a Christian conviction here – f you don’t know, the Roman Empire was one of the first nations to convert themselves to Christianity and make it an official, public religion. In fact, it was thanks to the Roman Empire’s conversion to Christianity that the religion could spread so fast so quickly, and it was thanks to the Empire that the very Christian Church rose up as an institution (and it was also because of the split of the Empire that the religion divided itself between Catholic and Orthodox). As a result, in the Christian mindset of the Middle-Ages and the Renaissance, the Roman Empire was seen as the first true Christian nation, and as having been formed by God’s will precisely as a tool and mean to spread Christianity across the known world. There is a whole logic in Christian cultures of the Roman Empire being a proof and manifestation of Providence, and the Roman Emperors having been tolerated or created by God in preparation for the arrival of the true heads of the Church – which is quite funny, because it is a paradoxical logic that also recognized how the fall of the Roman Empire was something also needed and ordered by God’s Will and Providence, due to them needing to pay for their pagan ways, their antagonistic role in Jesus’ time, and the whole thing of being the main persecutors of Christianity for a very long time… It is one of the many paradoxes of Christian culture, but let’s skip it over – let’s just say that for the Christian mindset of the time, the Roman Empire’s formation was seen as something approved and pushed forward by God himself, and as history of the time agrees, Caesar would have been the first Emperor and form the Roman Empire, if not for his brutal and tragic murder – which means, these traitors were seen as also killing a man appointed by God to do a very important and holy task favoring humanity, thus the parallel between Jesus and Caesar…

 XVIII) Getting out of Hell

Okay, so… our duo got the very end of Hell. Now… where do they go? In Dante’s guided tour through the afterlifes, the next destination is Purgatory, but how to escape Hell? Do they have to go all the way back? No!

You see, when the Devil fell on earth from Heaven, it formed a crater, right? It was because earth itself was so reviled and disgusted by the presence of the Devil it “fled” away as much as it could… And so where did all of this “fled earth” went to, as the big crater formed itself? To the other side of the world, where it formed a mountain paralleling the conic form of Hell. And this mountain, the “twin sister” of Hell, became Purgatory, a way to ascend from Earth to Heaven. So Purgatory is found at the exact opposite point on the Earth’s globe to Hell. And due to the formation of one creating the other, there are actually cracks into the very Earth that inter-connect the two – so Dante and Virgil merely crawls through one of these earth-cracks around Lucifer’s falling ground, to them cross throughout the globe to Purgatory.

There is only one thing… these cracks are where Lucifer fell. Aka, they are basically around Lucifer’s body. It is the fact his body got stuck into the earth that caused them. So… to reach them and travel through them, Dante and Virgil actually have to climb down Lucifer’s very own body. Doing so proves itself quite easy however, because Lucifer has a very hairy, almost furry body, and so they can cling onto the Devil’s fur to climb down and down into the Earth… and then up and up. Dante (the author) has a lot of fun playing with the physics of the world as they were thought at the time, and so while at first they go down, towards the center of the Earth, where gravity becomes stronger and stronger, Dante (the character) quickly says to Virgil “Hey wait… We are going back up! We are going backwards! We are in the wrong direction!”, only for Virgil to explain that no, they are going the right way. It is just that the center of the Earth, which is also the gravitational point of the planet, is located around where the Devil’s hips are, so by crossing this, the gravity reverses and so does human perception. While, from the flanks to the waist of the Devil, Dante had the feeling he was climbing down, starting with the Devil’s thigh, he now feels like he is climbing up, and he does – climbing up to the surface, to the other hemisphere, to Purgatory…

[thisisnotthenerd]

and now the best battles of the intrepid heroes go head to head

feel free to give reasoning/propaganda as you like!

the sidequest poll

quick episode descriptions:

arcade ambush: fighting biz in the arcade. the failed perception checks. getting sucked in and out of the games. riz in the palimpsest. beating a nat 20 in the box of doom. shooting off biz's fingers on the count of three.

broadway brawl: the show must go on. misty having the performance of a lifetime. queen titania. i may be little but i am fierce. esther in the rafters. don confetti. ricky, naked, bodyrolling on misty. stephen sondheim riding a bear. subduing titania with a waist trainer.

blast from the passed: after the trial for gorthalax. completely indecipherable battle. bill seacaster kills gilear. johnny spells can't get a word in edgewise. statistically i have just a good a chance at rolling good as any of you. toxic masculinity is dead, i dance now! riz is blasted off the ship into the iron city of dis.

boys' night (Roll20Con): just the lads, going to a party, where they are supremely uncool. extorting gilear for alcohol [uncle pappy's dag nasty rocket hooch] emergency poem for ragh and corey. stealth mode down the highway. chungledown bim is back. fabian falling under the car with the liquor. warping space time and going to the lan party.

deep bleu sea: peppermint batman is invisible in the darkness. primsy is attacked. jet sends stilton to the bottom of the ocean. shenanigan time. the boats sinking and shifting. cumulous appears. throwing the cheese marauders to induce a dexterity check. can i use swirlwarden to get back into the boat. annabelle in the yogurt

treachery at gramercy: fighting around the umbral engine. ricky's bat counterspell. pete surges twice. cody is a mounted combatant who read dante's inferno. tony simos is a crazy level 20 open hand monk. pete has subtle spell. ricky says tony get fucked and does 90 damage. kingston's spirits of the city. sofia stunning everyone. cody meets lucifer and makes a new contract. sofia pulls dale out of the past and into the present.

battle of the brands: the gang buys truly so much stuff. you are required to do a certain amount of drugs. barry is the angel of mercy. the sisters of the cosmic veil having a bikini party. taking kublacaine. we are the ball. barry taking brutus to the finals on a nat 20. nat 20 death save from aurora nebbins. margaret speaks to the plinth and then is down to 1 hit point. skip crits on the plinth. free teleportation shenanigans are not allowed. gunnie casts explosion. barry rapid shots the plinth and does product placement. operation slippery puppet. am i getting ocean's'd 11'd on my own fucking show? what the fuck is happening? a real son of a bitch is no more. sundry sidney has saved the dog!

terror on toy island: a soft little touch. mer-king's insect plague. no daddy. pib getting the little guys. i'm so fucking scared! the water surges around the mer-king. the terrible dogfish is here. daddy-meter is spinning. pinocchio crits to figure it out. pinocchio screaming to wake the dead. it has asthma! and another thing, with the eyes! you were about to instantly die. gerard is wearing full chain mail in the ocean.. rosamund & ylfa are swallowed. the sea witch shows up. murph causes a nat 20. call of destiny. rosamund gets the eye with a seven. i'm a lion in the water. pib's acrobatic crit. one v. one.

[dragonroilz]

Judas Prime - The Kiss of Piece

Do not mistake his pale hands for purity, for he has commited the worst crime known to man.

i imagine that his flesh prison mightve been something similar to lucifer, where his head was being chewed on and his claws dug so deeply into judas' back until they went out the other side.

his mechanic might be area denial using ice walls since in dante's inferno he's in treachery. or maybe something with coins since he kissed jesus for 30 silver pieces.

no other lore for this mf tho so feel free to make stuff up if you have ideas.

[v2is-baby]

how would Lucifer look like in Ultrakill? Frozen in the treachery circle. Give me your ideas.

[hyperfixat]

hello!! this is my first time requesting so lmk if im doing smth wrong ヾ(＾-＾)ノ

id like to request luke and mc playing "house" (basically where you pretend to roleplay as an ordinary family with roles like: wife/husband/child,etc) and upon hearing this, the obey me boys are wagging their tail practically begging to play as your husband (≡^∇^≡) would be hilarous if luke is just like "but... you'd be a terrible father *insert disgusted face here*"

tysm!! havea good day!!

haiii so somehow i didnt get this notification??? sorry its been a couple weeks???? but you asked just fine this is so cute and my tumblr also glitched and i lost my first draft so. it it what it is <3. (~350 words)

brother: can i be the husband!?! :D

luke: …

luke: no. 😐

luke plays as the husband i would like to reinforce that he is a child and this is a silly game that kids play 🙏

Lucifer would act like he doesn’t care, but pursues his lips when Luke eagerly asks for you to play as his spouse. He’ll make a little comment that, ‘shouldn’t Luke be the dog?’ 🤭

In the end he’s too busy to play such games.

Mammon would claim he deserves to be your husband, as your first man and all that. Gets into a genuine argument with the angel that is half his age. You have to pull him aside and tell him to just let Luke win.

Mammon grumbles and tells you that you owe him for this, and takes the role as one of your children.

Levi would stew in his envy, but resign to being the pet fish.

Satan would argue (just a little bit) that he should be your husband, but when he loses to the tiny angel, storms away, claiming he doesn’t have time for childish games.

(He really did get upset about it, but cools down when you let him know that you guys can play house together later on.)

Asmo would want to be your husband, but when told no, say that you deserve two husbands! Or you could have an affair with him! <3

Luke gasps and tells him to get lost, such treachery and infidelity is not allowed in your home! 😠

Beel would pout, and pretend he doesn’t mind not being your husband, and take the role as one of your children.

He understands that this is just a silly game and knows how happy it makes the little angel!

Belphie would be a bit upset, but put up minimal complaints, he finds out being a houseplant offers lots of time to sleep!

(bonus for my wife!) Thirteen gets her way of having you as a spouse by claiming you get to have one husband and one wife!

(Alternatively Luke straight up says that they aren’t allowed to play with you guys 🤭. Simeon will tell him off later for that.)

[death-by-sc0tland]

Chewing in Dante - Hannibal and Dante’s Lucifer

I’ve read Dante’s Inferno recently, which made me wanna look back on the lecture on Dante Hannibal was giving in season 3 episode 1. This whole lecture had the theme of betrayal, talking about Pietro della Vigna and Judas, which is also a theme for this half of the season. At the end of the scene, he started to talk about “chewing in Dante”, but the scene ended when Anthony came in and Hannibal noticed that Bedelia left. This got me thinking about the parallels between Hannibal and Dante’s Lucifer

While Hannibal is giving the lecture in the scene, his face literally merges with the projected face of Lucifer. Of course, Hannibal could be compared with Satan for many reasons, but there are more interesting parallels with Dante’s Satan specifically. Lucifer was banished from Heaven and receives the same punishment in Hell as the rest of the sinners, being in the 9th circle reserved for traitors. He is also in the centre of Hell, being the only one in that section of the circle (apart from the three sinners he’s chewing). Forgive me for quoting Wikipedia, but “[Satan] conveys at its sharpest the ultimate and universal pain of Hell: isolation.” Dante’s Satan is a pretty weak version of Satan, and the same goes for Hannibal in Florence. He is suffering there in isolation (i.e. without Will, who is the only person that truly understood him), and even though he pretends otherwise, he has lost his former power and is a much more unstable and reckless version of himself.

The chewing reference definitely goes further with the Lucifer/Hannibal parallel. Lucifer in Inferno has three faces and each one is chewing on a famous traitor: Brutus, Cassius, and Judas. In my opinion, Bedelia and Anthony would be Brutus and Cassius, and Will would be Judas. Hannibal plans to literally eat all three of them, but he also wants to chew on them in the figurative sense of punishing them for their sins - a betrayal from his point of view. The betrayal that Bedelia and Anthony commited from Hannibal’s POV is literally just not being Will. He took Bedelia to Florence as a replacement for Will, but she doesn’t truly understand and see Hannibal, and even tries to run away at one point. Anthony definitely reminds Hannibal of Will, which makes Hannibal interested in him, but ultimately he is not and cannot be Will. Hannibal and Bedelia’s stay in Florence could compare to Lucifer’s chewing on the sinners even better - neither of them really wanted to be there, but Hannibal still had more power over Bedelia.

Then we have Will of course, that directly betrayed Hannibal, like Judas betrayed Jesus (they even had the last supper and all that). Later, when Hannibal talks with Bedelia about Will, he comes to the conclusion that the only way he can forgive Will is to eat him - literally. In season 3 episode 6, Hannibal says “Now, we both have the opportunity to chew quite literally what we’ve only chewed figuratively,”, taking the metaphor of chewing in Dante into real life. It even fits in the way that Judas is in Lucifer’s mouth with the upper body in, and Hannibal planned to eat Will’s brain.

In season 3 episode 2, we interestingly also see Will compare Hannibal to God. Therefore, Hannibal can be a metaphor for both God and Satan. Will betrayed Hannibal, for which Hannibal punished him and left him (acting like God). However, by doing that, Hannibal also banished himself to Hell (Florence) and is left isolated (like Lucifer). There, he wants to “chew on” those that dare to take Will’s place, and then also on Will himself. According to Dante, treachery is the worst sin because it’s taking advantage of love - and that’s exactly what Hannibal saw Will’s actions as.

[drconstellation]

"Not Even At Gunpoint!"

Future Echoes of the Past #3

I didn't plan this meta. Well, maybe...just a tiny, weeny bit...I had been keeping a parallel in mind for a while...but not in this context. But it was kind of one of these moments:

Lets start at the beginning.

@beebopboom has been exploring the three magic tricks that appear in the S2 opening sequence recently, and speculating how the third one might appear in S3, and I've been exploring the paintball fight scene at Tadfield Manor in S1E2 and how that relates to the Great War in Heaven that formed Hell, and the events around the Fall. The two topics intersect, as you have echoes of the Bullet Catch magic trick from the 1941 minisode in S2E4 appearing not once but at least twice at Tadfield Manor.

But...then I realised, there's more than one pointed gun. Way more.

I'd always liked this throwback line from Crowley in S2E1, when Nina asks him if he is a bookseller as well:

Who would want to be a bookseller when this could happen to you?

Shadwell, turning up at the book shop in S1E4, disturbs Aziraphale contacting Heaven through the portal (a modified Solomon's magic circle) under the oculus, and breaks in to confront him. The historical implications of Aziraphale's lines here are that before homosexuality was decriminalized in the UK meeting places for such people were often disguised as respectable looking book shops. Which makes Nina's question in S2E1 and Crowley's denial to her all the more...loaded? Ah, well, you can't fool Nina, now, can you?

Anyway, mah point is...Shadwell literally has Aziraphale at gunpoint, er, fingerpoint here. Loaded fingerpoint.

But then, this isn't the first time Aziraphale has had a gun pointed at him. He had one pointed at him in the church in 1941 by the Nazi agent double-crossing Greta. His biggest fear, as always, isn't actually "dying," or standing in front of the guns, its the paperwork that he knows will go with getting a new body from the Ineffable Bureaucracy.

Crowley turns up to rescue him, because he "didn't want to see [him] embarrassed." With a bit of equivocation between the two of them, all the time while at gunpoint from Greta, they team up to save each other.

This was even before we got to the Bullet Catch - his "show stopper!"

Back to Tadfield Manor.

As they enter, Crowley is lined up in the crosshairs.

Er, wait a minute...

Only Crowley is shown this way here, not Aziraphale. He's a target. I'm starting to ask what point in time this is referring to - the present or the past? Both. Yeah, why not both! The work I did in this previous meta in this series showed that Crowley was considered a target for early removal by the other demons-to-be prior to the Fall.

Then they are both shot.

I pointed out Aziraphale gets shot by blue paint, representing Heaven, but its a colour we don't see used again by any one in the fighting to come. But what I didn't talk about was WHERE he got hit - in the back. That's synonymous with treachery. Heaven has stabbed Aziraphale in the back, so to speak. wow. Nice - not.

And Crowley? He gets hit in the heart - just like the Norman/Lucifer parallel on the Yellow Team does a short while later during his "fall" scene - with the red paint, betrayed by the Red Team who represent the management in Heaven.

Seems the Ineffable Bureaucracy wanted both them out of the way during the Great War...it get more and more interesting each time I look closer at it...

So was Aziraphale ever in the crosshairs? Yep.

And, as @vavoom-sorted-art points out, this is a time Aziraphale chooses to pick a weapon, and to fight. He didn't want the simple, safe deception trick with the ropes - he wanted a weapon. He really is much more the warrior than Crowley. Aziraphale, I think your nature as a principality is showing!

Firing that gun made Crowley sick to his stomach, and so did this metaphorical loaded gun - the Book of Life.

As soon as he found out from Beelzebub it was a real possibility of being played he went back to protect Aziraphale. Crowley hates fighting - watch how often he will try shut it down as quickly as possible or try to escape it when he can. To him everyone has free will, and the person picking the fight with the other is imposing their will on them. That's 'not on' in his books.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, is still reacting with his ingrained Heavenly instincts - that he should follow his morals because they are 'right,' and more sophisticated weapons add weight to the moral argument. He thinks. Maybe. (Yeah, keep working on that doubt, angel.)

Az: Impressive hardware. I've looked at this gun, its not a proper one at all. It just shoots paintballs. Cr: Don't your lot disapprove of guns? Az: Unless they're in the right hands. Then they give weight to a moral argument. I think. Cr: [laughing] A moral argument? Really? *tosses gun away* C'mon. [Heads into the Manor.] [later, after Crowley changes the paintball guns to real guns...] Az: But there are people out there shooting at each other! Cr: Well -  Lends weight to their moral argument. Everyone has free will, including the right to murder. Just think of it as a microcosm of the universe.

I'll think I'll end this here and leave you with a small montage of the aftermath of all this gun play - everything going up in flames and smoke.

Bring on S3!

If you didn't follow the links in the meta, and want to read the first two in this series, they are here:

#1: The Great War of Tadfield Manor

#2: The Newton/Crowley Mirror-Parallel in S1

[luc1ferian]

HAPPY 76th INDEPENDENCE DAY!! 🇮🇳🇮🇳🎉✨️

[cherubchoirs]

Seeing how Lucifer brings the morning, but not bringing it up during the war on heaven made me think of a little song called “There is no Sunrise or Sunset”. (English cover I found)

I feel like it encompasses not only Lucy, but also Gabe in a way (and also the Long Night but that’s for another story I feel). One interpretation of this song I found is that it’s about someone who works all-day, only coming home at night, making it seem like there’s, well, no sunrise or sunset.

Another interpretation I found is that it’s about a child who was abused, and the depression they got as a result of that. Stuck in their hometown, frozen in time. Something like that.

(Personally I like the latter one better since the hidden lyrics talk about how they’re sad and lonely, and that they have forgotten what a sunrise and a sunset looks like. Consequently, I feel like that fits Lucifer to a T, since he’s imprisoned in Treachery and all that.)

What do you think?

oooooh yes a very good song for lucifer...i think the moment he lost the will to raise the sun, when all the angels of heaven waited for a daybreak that never came and eventually had to realize they would now exist in perpetual night, there was a terrible, tangible shift in everyone. all of these perpetual, inexhaustible sons of god were running far thinner than they could admit or know, but lucifer failing to bring the dawn made them all face their own candles burning down, it made them face the deaths they hadn't been able to process. a permanent cessation of life, angels now gone forever, all of them forced into introspection by the oppressive, never-ending night. they fought on into the dark, god silently refusing to raise the sun for them, no longer spreading his light over the whole of heaven, and cold seeping into a heaven now saturated in deep blue. this is when michael knows he must do everything to end the war, that they cannot sustain now without accruing far worse casualties...or god letting them run until they have nothing left. lucifer is the failure point, he has given up on his role and his responsibility as prince, and so michael pursues him in that endless night to set heaven right.

in treachery, that perpetual night is exactly what lucifer lives in - according to the inferno, treachery is the one place in god's creation where his light fails to filter down to and so is entirely devoid of all warmth. lucifer sees nothing except by the occasional spark that still filters up from what weak source must still exist in his body (it reveals little, just more darkness), he went numb long ago to the bitter cold and now can only feel the agonized form he is attached to. he is locked, frozen, in the most complete, aching isolation that does not even have the semblance of ambient life to sustain it. lucifer only still knows a world exists outside of this horror because he could eventually hear hell speaking to him - otherwise he would have thought himself dead. and so hatred grew, hatred in its purest form as hell resided as his one companion in that maddening stillness...once a spirit of the dawn, lucifer could now never bear to see the sun

[sapphiel]

Any facts about Envy and/or Abaddon? If not, that is completely fine with me.

Envy is an artificially created demon, specifically a yaoguai, a demon infused with the essence of an animal.

She was created by another demon who was a grieving father, mourning the loss of his beloved daughter, envying those who got to keep their own children. After years of searching for ways to bring her back, he found a way to create yaoguais. In the end... Envy was the result. A corrupted form of his daughter who doesn't even remember herself.

Her former name was Mariah Julia.

Being half-chameleon, Envy has a prehensile tail, a long sticky tongue, can change her appearance to become invisible or even resemble someone else, and her back pair of eyes can move independently and give her unparalleled vision. Strangely, her fingers and toes are also adhesive, much like a gecko.

Her name is gotten from the fact that not only was she born out of envy, but she secretly yearns to be like other people, be they demon or not. She feels incomplete, a disappointment... and maybe someone else's life is a lot more fulfilling than her own.

Abaddon is the Lucifer of Treachery, the lowest of the lows. Lucifers are demons branded by Hell as sinners and criminals that not even fellow demons can tolerate. He bears the worst title, the Ninth, after manipulating several people into getting his own way, like tricking other demons into crimes so that he may report them to Hell to be branded as other Lucifers, and even seducing higher authorities just so he may ascend in power.

His punishment as the Lucifer of Treachery is the fate of non-existence. He was sentence to vanish from reality for as long as no one is thinking about him. Several millennia had passed since his banishment, and only just recently had he returned to reality due to complicated reasons.

Formerly an overachiever who wants to ascend in life, Abaddon is now extremely nihilistic, and wants to be rid of reality. His current goal is to find the child he made with an angel long ago in order to harness their power. Demons and angels in Schism form a race called the nephilim, nicknamed "godkillers" for their potential to overthrow even the mightiest of powers. He seeks to use his child's power to hopefully destroy The Schism, and end not just the world, but reality as we know it, so that all will cease to exist.

In relation to the other Lucifers, he is actually the reason for the other eight's (technically nine) imprisonment: He pushed for Archibald's dream of a truce with angels but reported him as a traitor to Hell (Limbo), blackmailed Jezieka's lover for her indulgence in cannibalism, only for Jezieka to offer herself to be punished in her stead (Lust), corrupted Lady Vylke into consuming massive amounts of demon flesh then had her reported (Gluttony), tricked Tytus and Dima into robbing a bank of Fodere (the Circle of Greed) then lured them into a trap for capture (Greed), seduced Ariel when she was a lieutenant so he may climb the ranks with her graces, who eventually went insane with anger after finding out his betrayal (Anger), goaded Heresy into forming an army to fight the government of Hell only to rat her out in the end (Heresy), captured the general that was Red Lady mid-war for her acts of extreme and unwarranted violence (Violence), and finally, reported his own right hand, Adarahiel, who knew everything, to the authorities so that no loose ends remain.

His child, Morticia, does not know her true origins, as her angel mother had sacrificed her body so that Abaddon cannot lay his hands on either her nor the child, and she initially know she was a nephilim. Eventually though, Abaddon will find her, possessing and corrupting her, then ensuing a grand battle that causes a lot of the Schism's greater powers to unite against the Treacherous menace who dared to rear his head again after millennia of silence.

[demvalhaken]

Heyyyyyyyyy~

I decided to make Satan more brown and not your stereotypical kinda guy. Also, I need a Lucifer design because right now we have purple/pink goober

I’ve been kinda hit with the sickness of artblock again because of how many things I need to design but don’t want to

I imagine Satan and Lucifer being rivals, but that’s just me

I don’t why but I kinda tried to make Lucifer look like the sky of Pride, which is purple at night and blue at day. Completely unrelated but at night there’s three bright glowing stars and at day, four stars. This is from the Purgatory of The Divine Comedy. They represent the cardinal and spiritual virtues! I think that’s really cool, because if I ever do make a purgatory, the stars will be shining from there into Pride and maybe Treachery. In the actual story, Dante goes from Treachery and into Purgatory, but Purgatory is one step closer to Heaven and Pride is the highest ring of Hell. So just picture that in your head if you can.

Hehe, Bael’s mother. Her name is so hard to pronounce, it’s great on paper though. Curse you Alrofes. I’m not even gonna reveal wtf she is because that’s for future Dem to decide.

Not much to say about her other than she’s protected by Satan because if anyone knew what she was, she would be killed on sight. You can make assumptions on what she is because she’s literally a freak of nature (With love)

I didn’t colour her eyes like Alrofes’s because it just didn’t look right. Also she now has finger glove markings because I thought it was really cool and it started as a little headcannon on what her hands could look like. I ate with her design btw! I don’t know what past Dem was on, but she cooked a 3 Michelin star meal and got a 20/10 by Gordon Ramsay himself. Okay, I’m joking. She’s such a silly goober who has 0 social skills, she was homeschooled. Why is King Bael of the Ars Goetia a woman, I don’t fucking know!!! It’s been like this for absolutely no reason!!! I need to learn how to stop making ocs that are woman and draw an actual man for once, damn

My dinner, the tape is holding back the entire universe

Okay bye I need to stfu before I start geeking and tweaking

Eat this up and stay a menace to society, I have like one week and six days before I go back to school and I need to see some actual people in my life.

Look out ladies, here comes Dem!!!

Edit: Guess who’s getting her school shit done, we bouta be back in Hell fr

[immortalarizona]

“May this blackened world make traitors of us all, and let my name be carved upon the flesh of history with a crooked knife!”

— Selaros Elpragh

so I told myself I would do my physics homework tonight and then I sat down at my desk and painted for two and a half hours straight instead lmao

anyways it’s an homage to That One Lucifer Painting feat. the beLOVED BASTARD MAN BARD from my OotA campaign!!! biting him. chewing him. putting him in a pringles can and shaking him around

basically what happened is I started listening to the Drizzt books and oH BOY did it awaken a new level of Angsty Drow Man brainrot in me, and we were also discussing Frankenstein in class today, so I had Paradise Lost on the brain already, and then this happened

the quote is an excerpt from the monologue my bard player wrote for when his guy’s identity got revealed and he made a warlock pact right then and there with my setting’s god of treachery, whose symbol is one of those daggers with a wavy blade

[30fishmen]

Unknown / Nth analysis

My post got some notes so now you must all read my Hozier lecture. You have no choice.

SOME DISCLAIMERS: I am currently in the process of reading Dante’s The Inferno so most of the information about it is pulled from the internet/prior knowledge that might be completely wrong. Feel free to correct me/add to the post with more information that I left out because I am sure I will leave out something. Also, most of this is my own personal feelings on the matter, art is subjective!! And if you disagree, I would love to hear it, discussion is what makes art and music and fandom fun. With that, onto the lecture.

BACKGROUND: As Hozier himself says in this interview, the song is about Treachery, the ninth circle of hell as Dante describes it in his Inferno. It depicts feelings of betrayal, loneliness, and longing as told from the perspective of God freshly betrayed by the one he most trusted, Lucifer. This is where most of the imagery in the song comes from. (I think that is super cool). I’m also gonna talk about my own interpretation of the song from when I first listened to it, since even without the background knowledge it’s such a powerful song. For convenience, the person singing the song is gonna be called “the speaker” and the person they’re singing to is gonna be called “the betrayer.”

You know the distance never made a difference to me – right off the bat Hozier is crushing our souls. This first line establishes so much love and longing its almost painful- feelings that have persevered despite past obstacles and will continue to persevere for the foreseeable future. The speaker has been separated from the betrayer before (past tense MADE implies this is not a new struggle to them), and the betrayer knows that.

I swam a lake of fire, I’d have walked across the floor of any sea – again, the speaker is proving their devotion by professing the things they have done, and what they are willing to do in the future (I SWAM a lake of fire, I’D HAVE WALKED across the floor of any sea; past tense to future). What I realized after Hozier talked about the inspiration for the song is: this line is referencing how Lucifer got into hell. The “lake of fire” refers to the punishment/imprisonment he received for his betrayal and what he has already endured by being separated from God, the literal and metaphorical hell that he had to go through in order to be in the position he is in. The “floor of any sea” refers to the frozen ocean he is trapped in, the one he is constantly trying to escape. God created this prison, and yet he would have been willing to traverse it.

Ignore the vastness between all that can be seen/and all that we believe/so I thought you were like an angel to me – This line is talking about the reality of the situation versus the image the speaker has in their mind of the betrayer. If they ignore what is actually happening (all that can be seen), they can still remember the betrayer as an angel (all that we believe). Incorporating the divine a little bit, this line could also be talking about the distance between heaven, the mortal realm/earth, and hell.

Funny how true colors shine in darkness and in secrecy – Pretty straightforward as far as the verses in this song go; a slightly ironic tone that acknowledges a betrayer’s tendency to never fully reveal themselves until it’s too late.

If there were scarlet flags, they washed out in the mind of me – Though again ironic and slightly self-deprecating, the message is heart-wrenchingly simple. The speaker loved the betrayer so much they couldn’t see the warning signs of their deceit/ chose to ignore it in favor of looking at all of their goodness. This line begins a phenomenon that I like to call “the Humanization of God.” God is supposed to be all knowing/all-powerful/whatever else you attribute him with. Yet he didn’t see the warning signs of betrayal from his closest friend, something painfully human.

Where a blinding light shone on you every night/and either side of my sleep/where you were held frozen like an angel to me – The “blinding light” this is referring to could mean three things (or all of those things at the same time): 1)it represents a pedestal/spotlight that the betrayer was put upon by the speaker, which is why red flags were so easily ignored. The speaker looked up to the betrayer so much they couldn’t fathom them possibly being anything other than perfect. OR 2) In the third installment of the Divine Comedy, Dante is enveloped by a “blinding light” that raises him up to heaven and allows him to see God. Therefore, the blinding light could reference the divinity Lucifer held before his betrayal, something that God thought would mean he was stuck as (FROZEN, even) an angel, and therefore unable to betray him. OR 3) this verse is talking about Lucifer after he’s already been trapped in hell, with the “blinding light” being the surface he’s trying to escape to. This interpretation would be especially sad because of the line “you were held frozen like an angel to me”, implying that even after his betrayal, God still sees Lucifer as an angel, not as a sinner or a demon. Even without the biblical context, the speaker still holds good memories of the betrayer after all is said and done, choosing to remember them as an “angel” rather than reflect on their horrible acts.

CHORUS TIME- there’s a quote that I always think about when I listen to this chorus: “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.”

 It ain’t the being alone/It ain’t the empty home baby/You know I’m good on my own -  the speaker has very clearly been alone before, which is sad because it implies that the betrayer is the one who alleviated this loneliness, providing company where there previously was none. Now that they’re gone, they’re back to being alone. Also the implication that the speaker confided in the betrayer about this past loneliness (YOU know I’m good on my own) makes their abandonment so much more heartbreaking.

Sha-la-la, baby, you know, it’s more the being unknown – Something new to the speaker, though, is the feeling of being unknown. God has always been placed on a pedestal, with no one to keep him company except his angels. Lucifer was the first angel, known as the angel of Light, and was someone God trusted and confided in. God thought he knew Lucifer, just as Lucifer knew him, and now with his closest friend gone, he must return to that lonely position of power, unknown to any other angel or worshipper as anyone other than God- distant, all powerful, unapproachable God. And maybe this betrayal is what forced God up into heaven in the first place, doomed to never again be known as he was by Lucifer. In a way, that’s almost exactly like the punishment he’s given to his betrayer.

So much of the living, love, is the being unknown – This line reads surprisingly hopeful to me. It’s an acknowledgement of the situation, sort of saying “oh well, that’s life” to the most famous betrayal of all time. The most important part about this line is the tone; there’s no bitterness, no resentment of the circumstances or the people that have led them to this situation.

You called me angel for the first time, my heart leapt from me – This line is talking about the first time the betrayer and the speaker met, and how that interaction affected the speaker. It also speaks to how much one person can be changed by another’s affection. As soon as the speaker was called angel, their heart was no longer their own, trusted entirely to the betrayer to use as they will. It also seems the decision was at least a little bit unwilling on the speaker’s part (the phrase “leapt FROM ME” implies unwillingness; the speaker didn’t GIVE their heart away, it jumped from their grasp). Point is, the speaker was definitely in denial about how close they were to the betrayer. Another instance of humanizing God in the context of the story, for though he is often depicted as loving, you never really think of him as having a heart to be broken or to be given away to his most trusted.

You smile now, I can see its pieces still stuck in your teeth – the imagery in this line is insane; the speaker’s heart was literally chewed up and spit out by the betrayer by their act. The fact that literal scraps are seen in a SMILE shows the betrayer still deceiving, trying to placate/make friends with the speaker even as their heart is in literal pieces because of their mouth. This is also another reference to the Inferno- Lucifer is described as a three-headed demon, with each of his mouths chewing on the bible’s/history’s greatest betrayers: Brutus, Longinus, and Judas. Brutus and Longinus are being punished for their role in Julius Caesar’s assassination by being stuck feet-first in Lucifer’s mouth. Judas receives the worst punishment of the three; his head is being chewed on while his back gets scraped up by Lucifer’s claws.

And what’s left of it, I listen to it tick/every tedious beat/going unknown as any angel to me – This. Line. Oh my god. Even in the teeth of their betrayer, torn to shreds, the speaker’s heart is still beating and alive, just as their love for the betrayer is. And after thinking it over (“listening to their heart”), they realize that maybe they don’t know their own heart as well as they thought. Because what heart would love a betrayer? (A HUMAN ONE, PROBABLY. HUMANIZATION OF GOD.) Also, the use of angel, not as a term of endearment as it was previously, but in reference to a group (unknown as ANY angel, rather than MY angel or THE angel) indicates both God’s realization that he didn’t know Lucifer as well as he thought and a resolution to never trust or hold another angel as close ever again.

AND NOW FOR MY FAVORITE PART!!!!!!!! BY FAR THE BEST PART OF THE WHOLE SONG IN MY OPINION. Setting aside the lyrics and the meaning of the song, just the pure power of Hozier’s voice in this section gets me every time. So much of a change from the easygoing guitar that’s made up the rest of the song- there’s like a heavenly chorus behind him, he’s singing at the top of his lungs louder and higher than any other part, it’s just so…. I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s so good.

Do you know I could break beneath the weight?/Of the goodness, love, I still carry for you – Personally, I think the “goodness” that is being described here is the speaker’s hope that the betrayer is still a good person, deep down inside. It’s a hope that is futile and slowly “breaking” the speaker, because the deed has already been done, yet the speaker still carries it. In addition to that, I like to think that the responsibility of heaven was shared between God and Lucifer before his betrayal, and now without him, God is forced to carry the weight and pressure of being the divine creator of the universe all alone.

That I’d walk so far just to take/The injury of finally knowing you – Referencing the line earlier in song (I’d have walked across the floor of any sea) and again stressing the lengths the speaker is willing to go for the betrayer. The best part about this line is, again, the acknowledgement of pain by the speaker. They specifically say “the INJURY of finally knowing you”, meaning that fully, truly knowing the betrayer as they want to would cause lasting harm. Also, the realization that, as things currently stand, the speaker DOESN’T know the betrayer (hence the use of the word finally, implying future), and to know them completely would mean to know the reasons WHY they betrayed the speaker, which would certainly cause “injury.” Yet the speaker DOESN’T CARE. They don’t CARE how hurt they are by the betrayer, how much it WILL HURT in the future, they just want to be with them and if that isn’t the saddest thing-

The closing chorus is mostly the same as it was before (it ain’t the being alone/it ain’t the empty home baby/you know I’m good on my own/sha-la-la, baby, you know, it’s more the being unknown) except for the final line.

And there are some people, love, who are better unknown – my initial reaction to this line was that it sounded surprisingly hopeful considering the rest of the song, much like the line in the first appearance of the chorus. I took it to mean that the speaker accepted the fact that the betrayer was bad for them, and maybe it’s better off that they don’t know them. But looking back at all the analysis about how far the speaker would go, all the injury they are willing to put themselves through, that just doesn’t make much sense (Plus the fact that the speaker still says “love”). No, that wouldn’t be the Hozier way. Instead, I think this line is the speaker blaming themselves. Saying that THEY are the ones who are better unknown, because they’ve tried the whole love and trust thing and look how that turned out. Consider the character of the speaker that’s been built throughout the entire song: someone who gone through hell and is still willing to go farther for someone who clearly won’t do the same, someone who ignored red flags in favor of focusing on the good, someone who trusted their heart to a person who chewed it up without a second thought. This is definitely a person to take betrayal personally, to turn on and blame themselves rather than get angry at the betrayer, the actual person at fault. The rest of the chorus and previous analysis supports this too (speaker is ok with being alone/on their own, but they are NOT ok with being unknown. So, to inflict that on themselves is a fitting punishment). Also, the speaker being the self-blaming person they are, this line could be read as sort of an apology; if they hadn’t let themselves be known, let themselves open up to the betrayer, maybe neither of them would be hurting this much in the first place. It might’ve been better if the speaker had STAYED unknown and alone as they were before knowing the betrayer.

This whole analysis is a cumulation of all the thoughts that have been fermenting in my brain for the past month, so if it’s a bit nonsensical I do apologize. Also, huge shoutout to my friend for listening to my insane ramblings and also helping me edit this, she doesn’t have a tumblr but I appreciate her immensely.

That’s all I got for now, if this gets some traction maybe I’ll post my thoughts about some other Hozier songs (because holy shit are his songs amazing). If you got this far down thank you so much for reading! It feels really good to put all the words down and actually organize them, and knowing that there are people who actually want to read it is so cool.

people who asked to be tagged: @freddykicksasses @allegedlyunmagical @iwillgotoheavenforyou