Paraphrasing Book II of Paradise Lost
Feb. 6th, 2006 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaPreviously in Book I, Satan and his fellows had found himself down in Hell, on a lake of fire. He woke them up, and they all sat down to a good ol' big conference. Maybe he held audience with his fellows? I don't know. Call it what you will.
So, Satan and his fellows. Satan asks, "what shall we do to get back at God?" You've got three major characters, all with a differing opinion. Moloch goes first. Milton describes him as a good fighter, better now that he's pretty desperate, but only in brute strength. He says, "let's go to war. I'm no good with cunning, so I suggest we just fight back." He's like a, I don't know, a fucking Jihad Jesus who just wants to blow shit up, but I respect that; he knows his bounds.
Belial goes next, and he's smoother than that. I find the language Milton uses interesting: "Belial is a manner more graceful and humane". So you're trying to talk about demons? OK. Belial's stance is basically, "let's not go to war, because we'd just get our asses kicked again." He's also smart: "we could try to piss God off until he kills us off, but He's too smart for that, because He'd know we were asking for it." I don't know what I think about the end of his speech: "We'll get used to it."
Mammon goes next, and his is basically taking Belial's speech one step further: Not only they get used to Hell, but they may well be able to use Hell as their own. Basically, once you get to know your terrain really well, you can use it to your advantage. But he knows it's prison, and he doesn't deny it, but he's an opportunist.
Beelzebub, sitting one step under Satan here (second biggest hotshot dude), stands up, "Well, that's that, so let's move on to funner things! I hear a new race of ... things is coming up, and it's going to be called Man, and Man is going to be the Number One Thing! Man is going to be God's pet project! So how about this: Let's fuck Man up!"
And it turns out that that's a really good idea. So Satan says, "someone's gotta go up there and do the first step, and that's going to be me. Anybody wanna come along?" and he gives everybody this LOOK which means, obviously, he doesn't want them to go along. He doesn't need them. And he looks SO much cooler when doing it alone - you know, hero stuff. It really elevates his position somewhat that he's "risking his life" to do this alone. A very cunning political move. Not like kissing babies, but close.
So Satan leaves, and that leaves the demons to do as they like. They begin doing varying things:
1) Go fucking nuts. I don't understand why, they just decided to go about tearing up rocks and burning shit up and things like that. Repression maybe?
2) Angst. I can understand this. They just got kicked out of Hell. Why wouldn't they sit about and (w)angst about the tragedy of free will?
3) Debate in a "discourse more sweet". About? Whatever the previous group was angsting about. They're never gonna get to a conclusion, but that's okay. They have all the time in the world.
4) The last group start doing something productive - they start looking for places they'd like to live in, and start seeking out more livable abodes. That's smart.
Okay, so here's something disturbing, ladies and gentlemen: Satan flies long and high, and he finally finds the gates of Hell. There're two people there: a snakewoman who has a trio of hounds constantly barking, and whenever they like, they crawl back into her womb and just piss her off in general. Then there's... a thing. Milton says he's got no shape or whatever. So we'll just call him a thing.
The snakewoman has the key to Hell. The thing... just kinda stands there. And starts to attack Satan. So Satan and the thing are in a Mexican stand-off (No, THIS IS IN MY EXPLANATORY NOTES), and the snakewoman's like, "Dad! Why are you attacking your son?!"
Satan's like, "Who the hell are you? I've never seen you before."
And the snakewoman explains, "I'm Sin, I was born (like Athena, OUT OF YOUR HEAD, literally, lawl) when you first had thoughts of rebellion against God. That thing is your son, Death, who was born when you actually started rebelling against God. I thought he was the ugliest thing ever and tried to run away from him, but he chased me down and raped me, so I gave birth to these hounds who now keep pissing me off."
Happy family.
Satan is like "dear daughter, since you enlightened me with this news, I think it's great. When I infiltrate the mortal world I'm going to corrupt, you can be sure I'll give you a very big role in fucking up Man. And Death, too."
The two of them are pleased with this, and Sin lets the Devil out of the Bag.
Satan carries on over lots of geography until he comes to the Kingdom of Chaos, and the Chaos looks at him, and says, "I know you, you're the dude who decided to fuck up Heaven. What do you want?"
"I decided I'd fuck up Man instead. Where can I find this realm?"
"Not far. It's between this realm and Heaven now, and I think it's great that you're going up to perform a fuckup operation. What you do is going to be good for me!"
So Satan continues flying off to find Earth.
And thus ends Book II.
Book III and IV will have to be soon. I actually present on Satan come the 16th. I wonder how I'm going to do that one.
So, Satan and his fellows. Satan asks, "what shall we do to get back at God?" You've got three major characters, all with a differing opinion. Moloch goes first. Milton describes him as a good fighter, better now that he's pretty desperate, but only in brute strength. He says, "let's go to war. I'm no good with cunning, so I suggest we just fight back." He's like a, I don't know, a fucking Jihad Jesus who just wants to blow shit up, but I respect that; he knows his bounds.
Belial goes next, and he's smoother than that. I find the language Milton uses interesting: "Belial is a manner more graceful and humane". So you're trying to talk about demons? OK. Belial's stance is basically, "let's not go to war, because we'd just get our asses kicked again." He's also smart: "we could try to piss God off until he kills us off, but He's too smart for that, because He'd know we were asking for it." I don't know what I think about the end of his speech: "We'll get used to it."
Mammon goes next, and his is basically taking Belial's speech one step further: Not only they get used to Hell, but they may well be able to use Hell as their own. Basically, once you get to know your terrain really well, you can use it to your advantage. But he knows it's prison, and he doesn't deny it, but he's an opportunist.
Beelzebub, sitting one step under Satan here (second biggest hotshot dude), stands up, "Well, that's that, so let's move on to funner things! I hear a new race of ... things is coming up, and it's going to be called Man, and Man is going to be the Number One Thing! Man is going to be God's pet project! So how about this: Let's fuck Man up!"
And it turns out that that's a really good idea. So Satan says, "someone's gotta go up there and do the first step, and that's going to be me. Anybody wanna come along?" and he gives everybody this LOOK which means, obviously, he doesn't want them to go along. He doesn't need them. And he looks SO much cooler when doing it alone - you know, hero stuff. It really elevates his position somewhat that he's "risking his life" to do this alone. A very cunning political move. Not like kissing babies, but close.
So Satan leaves, and that leaves the demons to do as they like. They begin doing varying things:
1) Go fucking nuts. I don't understand why, they just decided to go about tearing up rocks and burning shit up and things like that. Repression maybe?
2) Angst. I can understand this. They just got kicked out of Hell. Why wouldn't they sit about and (w)angst about the tragedy of free will?
3) Debate in a "discourse more sweet". About? Whatever the previous group was angsting about. They're never gonna get to a conclusion, but that's okay. They have all the time in the world.
4) The last group start doing something productive - they start looking for places they'd like to live in, and start seeking out more livable abodes. That's smart.
Okay, so here's something disturbing, ladies and gentlemen: Satan flies long and high, and he finally finds the gates of Hell. There're two people there: a snakewoman who has a trio of hounds constantly barking, and whenever they like, they crawl back into her womb and just piss her off in general. Then there's... a thing. Milton says he's got no shape or whatever. So we'll just call him a thing.
The snakewoman has the key to Hell. The thing... just kinda stands there. And starts to attack Satan. So Satan and the thing are in a Mexican stand-off (No, THIS IS IN MY EXPLANATORY NOTES), and the snakewoman's like, "Dad! Why are you attacking your son?!"
Satan's like, "Who the hell are you? I've never seen you before."
And the snakewoman explains, "I'm Sin, I was born (like Athena, OUT OF YOUR HEAD, literally, lawl) when you first had thoughts of rebellion against God. That thing is your son, Death, who was born when you actually started rebelling against God. I thought he was the ugliest thing ever and tried to run away from him, but he chased me down and raped me, so I gave birth to these hounds who now keep pissing me off."
Happy family.
Satan is like "dear daughter, since you enlightened me with this news, I think it's great. When I infiltrate the mortal world I'm going to corrupt, you can be sure I'll give you a very big role in fucking up Man. And Death, too."
The two of them are pleased with this, and Sin lets the Devil out of the Bag.
Satan carries on over lots of geography until he comes to the Kingdom of Chaos, and the Chaos looks at him, and says, "I know you, you're the dude who decided to fuck up Heaven. What do you want?"
"I decided I'd fuck up Man instead. Where can I find this realm?"
"Not far. It's between this realm and Heaven now, and I think it's great that you're going up to perform a fuckup operation. What you do is going to be good for me!"
So Satan continues flying off to find Earth.
And thus ends Book II.
Book III and IV will have to be soon. I actually present on Satan come the 16th. I wonder how I'm going to do that one.