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I've been reading Paradise Lost and Satan gives off major "sexy villain" vibes. The hosts of hell remain strong and defiant even while in their realm of eterna

I've been reading Paradise Lost and Satan gives off major "sexy villain" vibes. The hosts of hell remain strong and defiant even while in their realm of eternal torment - "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven" and all that. Meanwhile heaven is pretty bland and the angels come of as a bunch of milquetoasts. I don't know enough about Milton to know if he intended to write a cautionary tale vs. an interesting tail, but I can imagine readers thinking "f** it, I'd rather hang out with the cool kids"

tharmas 3y ago
I highly recommend you read some William Blake. He was Milton's greatest critic (but a great admirer too): "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it." --The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
tivert 3y ago
> The hosts of hell remain strong and defiant even while in their realm of eternal torment ... Meanwhile heaven is pretty bland and the angels come of as a bunch of milquetoasts. That reminds me of the observation that happy lives make boring stories, so fiction tends towards showing dysfunctional characters, awful environments, or both.
- QuercusMax 3y ago
  I believe it was Tolstoy who said something to the effect of "Happy families are boring, because they're all the same. Unhappy families are interesting because they're all different."
  - perihelions 3y ago
    That's the opening line of Anna Karenina. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1399/pg1399-images.html#chap01 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1399/pg1399-images.html...
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Tolkien echoed the same thing in The Hobbit: “Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.” And we see it on HN itself, there are many "very good" stories that get posted that get a lot of upvotes but few comments because really all there is to say is 'very good'. But stories about bad things happening get thousands of comments.
- wredcoll 3y ago
  Also what we perceive as "heroic" especially in a fantasy/super-hero context, tends to ultimately be status quo preserving, which frequently means the villains tends to be the "cool" "disruptive" characters, and if the world isn't sufficiently perfect then it's easy for some people to start believing that any disruption is justified.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer#Premise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer#Premise
Terr_ 3y ago
Just to stir the pot and throw C.S. Lewis into the mix [0]: > To admire Satan, then, is to give one's vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography. Yet the choice is possible. Hardly a day passes without some slight movement towards it in each one of us. That is what makes Paradise Lost so serious a poem. The thing is possible, and the exposure of it is resented. Where Paradise Lost is not loved, it is deeply hated. As Keats said more rightly than he knew, 'there is death' in Milton. > We have all skirted the Satanic island closely enough to have motives for wishing to evade the full impact of the poem. For, I repeat, the thing is possible ; and after a certain point it is prized. Sir Willoughby may be unhappy, but he wants to go on being Sir Willoughby. Satan wants to go on being Satan. That is the real meaning of his choice 'Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.' Some, to the very end, will think this a fine thing to say ; others will think that it fails to be roaring farce only because it spells agony. On the level of literary criticism the matter cannot be argued further. Each to his taste. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Preface_to_Paradise_Lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Preface_to_Paradise_Lost
- nineplay 3y ago
  It's interesting to me that Lewis is so engaged with it. I read Paradise Lost as a sort of fanfic. Milton does not claim to be a prophet or that it is some literal representation of heaven and hell. Within the book Satan is a fictional character with the same sort of appeal as Walter White or the Joker or Severus Snape. They seem cool as long as you don't think about it too deeply. But I don't mean this as a criticism of Lewis who I adore. I'll have to read his Preface, since I'm sure they'll deepen my understanding.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    Circling back to partially-relatable depictions of devilry, Lewis' The Screwtape Letters has it's own mix in the eponymous author Screwtape. I recommend it even to the non-religious since many of the human errors/temptations it discusses can still be understood through an agnostic lens. For example, one doesn't have to believe whispering devils are involved in order to believe in in/out-group thinking, inferiority complexes, procrastination, etc.
rocmcd 3y ago
There's a quote from Zach Weinersmith (author, cartoonist) during a podcast a while back that stuck with me about Milton's depiction of Satan: "I will say Milton is great and readable as long as Satan is talking. [...] the joke on Milton is that he was the greatest gift to Satan in history. He did everything short of giving him a two-headed guitar. It is just like, Satan is so cool." [0] I highly recommend giving it a listen (and Econtalk more generally!) if this is something that interests you. [0] https://www.econtalk.org/zach-weinersmith-on-beowulf-and-bea-wolf/ https://www.econtalk.org/zach-weinersmith-on-beowulf-and-bea...
- cooper_ganglia 3y ago
  What a last name on that guy!
  - schoen 3y ago
    It's his married name, and would conventionally be hyphenated, but he decided not to (I think because he thought it would be funnier without the hyphen).
matwood 3y ago
Or as Biggie put it https://genius.com/407104 https://genius.com/407104. "God'll probably have me on some real strict sh*t No sleepin' all day, no gettin' my d**k licked Hangin' with the goodie-goodies, loungin' in paradise F*k that shit, I wanna tote guns and shoot dice"
- nineplay 3y ago
  There must be some psychic link, I was tempted to quote Biggie in my post. I kept waiting for Satan stand up in front of his crew and say "Raise your hands in the air if youse a true player"
- palad1n 3y ago
  Along that line, the Doors https://genius.com/The-doors-when-the-musics-over-lyrics https://genius.com/The-doors-when-the-musics-over-lyrics Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection Send my credentials to the House of Detention I got some friends inside
Aerbil313 3y ago
Such a Christian portrayal of hell and heaven.
AlbertCory 3y ago
Just to stir the pot even further: I recently picked up Dante and enrolled in an online course. Inferno and Purgatorio: no problem. I wouldn't say "couldn't put it down" but it was no problem to read. I also watched the Ken Burns special. Paradiso: hate it. Beatrice is boring.
- JdeBP 3y ago
  Have you read the Niven and Pournelle re-telling?
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    "re-telling" -- sounds horrible, actually.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
keybored 3y ago
Our culture is saturated with this trope. Compare: 1. Health nut who lives on salad, low-fat yogurt/everything, jogs endlessly, frets about his body being a temple[1] 2. Sex, drugs, good food, rock & roll Miserly wholesomeness vs. exciting, short-lived unwholesomeness. [1] The point here is the self-denial. Some people intrinsically likes these things; however, they would then not fit the trope
- quesera 3y ago
  And confounding things further, there's little evidence that group one lives a longer -- much less happier -- life, than group two.
  - generic92034 3y ago
    I had the impression over-eating and drug abuse was shortening one's life, on average. Is that wrong?
    - quesera 3y ago
      Both of the examples are archetypical extremes. But FWIW the character created for example #2 is not mainlining mountain dew and fentanyl.
  - midnight2 3y ago
    Could you expand on why you think living healthily doesn't increase your lifespan? Untreated STDs can cause infertility, sexual dysfunction, cancer, brain damage, and death. No method of preventing them is 100% effective besides abstinence or having sex with a small amount of partners that you trust not to lie about being clean. Drugs carry the risk of overdosing, and for those that even just use semi regularly they still reduce lifespan. Eating excess calories makes you fat which hugely increases your risk of having a heart attack among other health issues. Even if you control your calories, eating processed food makes you more likely to die early or develop a debilitating disease. This is all very common sense about how to live longer, if you think you've cracked the code and any of the above is wrong please explain.
nickpsecurity 3y ago
God's Word says Satan is permitted to run this world, encouraging us to think his way, until judgement comes later. He does it by appealing to their sinful desires. Our own selfishness does the rest. "in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them" (2 Cor. 4:4) So, let's contrast the truth. In my other comment, I mentioned what the sinful kids and Satan are destined for. It's not pretty. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39973866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39973866 What about heaven? In Genesis 2, before the Fall, man had fellowship with God, hung out with each other, did work, and rested. God said all good things are a gift from Him. If it's not sinful, it might exist in heaven. For its nature, fruit of the Spirit is "love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." So, imagine all human activities that are fun and embodied with those virtues. That's Heaven. We have a taste of it here on Earth in the Church. We mostly go about our day, do our jobs, spend time with our families, and enjoy our hobbies. In church service, we worship God together and serve others in love. In spare time, we hang out, enjoy good food, go on vacation together, play games, share stories, etc. The problems in churches come from our sinful natures which God will eliminate (called glorification) once our time here is up. So, one place has us separated from everyone, in a lake of fire, and burning non-stop. Satan will be there, too. The other is every good thing you can imagine on Earth done in a better way, other things you can't imagine, your friends there, and the very presence of God giving you fullness of joy. Christ and His Heaven are the obvious choice. Anyone suffering here on Earth are also told to keep their eye on the prize which is our future inheritance.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  While I will Vouch for your right to say that, and I find the professional atheists like Dawkins to be a bunch of a-holes: Personally, I think that when you're dead, you're just dead. Like sleep, except you don't wake up or dream. When your neurons are shutting off, they probably put on one hell of a show for you. Just like the show they put on that convinces you that "consciousness" is a real thing, and you have a "soul." It's not and you don't. But like I said, I think what you believe is probably good for humans, on the whole, and I don't condemn it at all.
owendlamb 3y ago
> Meanwhile heaven is pretty bland and the angels come of as a bunch of milquetoasts. You reminded me of that Simpsons bit about Protestant Heaven vs Catholic Heaven: https://youtu.be/-4IletJ7-Tw https://youtu.be/-4IletJ7-Tw
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  and you reminded me of "I am not Canadian" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TncdhLGjFTE as a response to Molson's "I am Canadian" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
I have heard Milton's work described as an expression of a spirit of Protestant satanism. That is, Milton, by virtue of the rebelliousness of Protestantism, to which he subscribed, is accused of being satanic.
mr_toad 3y ago
“You see, the thing about heaven is that heaven is for people who like the sort of things that go on in heaven. Like, well, singing, talking to God, watering pot plants.” — The Black Adder.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  In Samuel Clemens' posthumously published work there's a story in which heaven has wings and harps, because all the newbies expect them, but after you get bored with that it's perfectly ok to return them and go do something more fun.

tharmas 3y ago

I highly recommend you read some William Blake. He was Milton's greatest critic (but a great admirer too): "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it." --The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

tivert 3y ago

> The hosts of hell remain strong and defiant even while in their realm of eternal torment ... Meanwhile heaven is pretty bland and the angels come of as a bunch of milquetoasts. That reminds me of the observation that happy lives make boring stories, so fiction tends towards showing dysfunctional characters, awful environments, or both.

QuercusMax 3y ago
I believe it was Tolstoy who said something to the effect of "Happy families are boring, because they're all the same. Unhappy families are interesting because they're all different."
- perihelions 3y ago
  That's the opening line of Anna Karenina. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1399/pg1399-images.html#chap01 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1399/pg1399-images.html...
- bombcar 3y ago
  Tolkien echoed the same thing in The Hobbit: “Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.” And we see it on HN itself, there are many "very good" stories that get posted that get a lot of upvotes but few comments because really all there is to say is 'very good'. But stories about bad things happening get thousands of comments.
wredcoll 3y ago
Also what we perceive as "heroic" especially in a fantasy/super-hero context, tends to ultimately be status quo preserving, which frequently means the villains tends to be the "cool" "disruptive" characters, and if the world isn't sufficiently perfect then it's easy for some people to start believing that any disruption is justified.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer#Premise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer#Premise

Terr_ 3y ago

Just to stir the pot and throw C.S. Lewis into the mix [0]: > To admire Satan, then, is to give one's vote not only for a world of misery, but also for a world of lies and propaganda, of wishful thinking, of incessant autobiography. Yet the choice is possible. Hardly a day passes without some slight movement towards it in each one of us. That is what makes Paradise Lost so serious a poem. The thing is possible, and the exposure of it is resented. Where Paradise Lost is not loved, it is deeply hated. As Keats said more rightly than he knew, 'there is death' in Milton. > We have all skirted the Satanic island closely enough to have motives for wishing to evade the full impact of the poem. For, I repeat, the thing is possible ; and after a certain point it is prized. Sir Willoughby may be unhappy, but he wants to go on being Sir Willoughby. Satan wants to go on being Satan. That is the real meaning of his choice 'Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.' Some, to the very end, will think this a fine thing to say ; others will think that it fails to be roaring farce only because it spells agony. On the level of literary criticism the matter cannot be argued further. Each to his taste. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Preface_to_Paradise_Lost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Preface_to_Paradise_Lost

nineplay 3y ago
It's interesting to me that Lewis is so engaged with it. I read Paradise Lost as a sort of fanfic. Milton does not claim to be a prophet or that it is some literal representation of heaven and hell. Within the book Satan is a fictional character with the same sort of appeal as Walter White or the Joker or Severus Snape. They seem cool as long as you don't think about it too deeply. But I don't mean this as a criticism of Lewis who I adore. I'll have to read his Preface, since I'm sure they'll deepen my understanding.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  Circling back to partially-relatable depictions of devilry, Lewis' The Screwtape Letters has it's own mix in the eponymous author Screwtape. I recommend it even to the non-religious since many of the human errors/temptations it discusses can still be understood through an agnostic lens. For example, one doesn't have to believe whispering devils are involved in order to believe in in/out-group thinking, inferiority complexes, procrastination, etc.

rocmcd 3y ago

There's a quote from Zach Weinersmith (author, cartoonist) during a podcast a while back that stuck with me about Milton's depiction of Satan: "I will say Milton is great and readable as long as Satan is talking. [...] the joke on Milton is that he was the greatest gift to Satan in history. He did everything short of giving him a two-headed guitar. It is just like, Satan is so cool." [0] I highly recommend giving it a listen (and Econtalk more generally!) if this is something that interests you. [0] https://www.econtalk.org/zach-weinersmith-on-beowulf-and-bea-wolf/ https://www.econtalk.org/zach-weinersmith-on-beowulf-and-bea...

cooper_ganglia 3y ago
What a last name on that guy!
- schoen 3y ago
  It's his married name, and would conventionally be hyphenated, but he decided not to (I think because he thought it would be funnier without the hyphen).

matwood 3y ago

Or as Biggie put it https://genius.com/407104 https://genius.com/407104. "God'll probably have me on some real strict sh*t No sleepin' all day, no gettin' my d**k licked Hangin' with the goodie-goodies, loungin' in paradise F*k that shit, I wanna tote guns and shoot dice"

nineplay 3y ago
There must be some psychic link, I was tempted to quote Biggie in my post. I kept waiting for Satan stand up in front of his crew and say "Raise your hands in the air if youse a true player"
palad1n 3y ago
Along that line, the Doors https://genius.com/The-doors-when-the-musics-over-lyrics https://genius.com/The-doors-when-the-musics-over-lyrics Cancel my subscription to the Resurrection Send my credentials to the House of Detention I got some friends inside

Aerbil313 3y ago

Such a Christian portrayal of hell and heaven.

AlbertCory 3y ago

Just to stir the pot even further: I recently picked up Dante and enrolled in an online course. Inferno and Purgatorio: no problem. I wouldn't say "couldn't put it down" but it was no problem to read. I also watched the Ken Burns special. Paradiso: hate it. Beatrice is boring.

JdeBP 3y ago
Have you read the Niven and Pournelle re-telling?
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  "re-telling" -- sounds horrible, actually.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

keybored 3y ago

Our culture is saturated with this trope. Compare: 1. Health nut who lives on salad, low-fat yogurt/everything, jogs endlessly, frets about his body being a temple[1] 2. Sex, drugs, good food, rock & roll Miserly wholesomeness vs. exciting, short-lived unwholesomeness. [1] The point here is the self-denial. Some people intrinsically likes these things; however, they would then not fit the trope

quesera 3y ago
And confounding things further, there's little evidence that group one lives a longer -- much less happier -- life, than group two.
- generic92034 3y ago
  I had the impression over-eating and drug abuse was shortening one's life, on average. Is that wrong?
  - quesera 3y ago
    Both of the examples are archetypical extremes. But FWIW the character created for example #2 is not mainlining mountain dew and fentanyl.
- midnight2 3y ago
  Could you expand on why you think living healthily doesn't increase your lifespan? Untreated STDs can cause infertility, sexual dysfunction, cancer, brain damage, and death. No method of preventing them is 100% effective besides abstinence or having sex with a small amount of partners that you trust not to lie about being clean. Drugs carry the risk of overdosing, and for those that even just use semi regularly they still reduce lifespan. Eating excess calories makes you fat which hugely increases your risk of having a heart attack among other health issues. Even if you control your calories, eating processed food makes you more likely to die early or develop a debilitating disease. This is all very common sense about how to live longer, if you think you've cracked the code and any of the above is wrong please explain.

nickpsecurity 3y ago

God's Word says Satan is permitted to run this world, encouraging us to think his way, until judgement comes later. He does it by appealing to their sinful desires. Our own selfishness does the rest. "in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them" (2 Cor. 4:4) So, let's contrast the truth. In my other comment, I mentioned what the sinful kids and Satan are destined for. It's not pretty. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39973866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39973866 What about heaven? In Genesis 2, before the Fall, man had fellowship with God, hung out with each other, did work, and rested. God said all good things are a gift from Him. If it's not sinful, it might exist in heaven. For its nature, fruit of the Spirit is "love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control." So, imagine all human activities that are fun and embodied with those virtues. That's Heaven. We have a taste of it here on Earth in the Church. We mostly go about our day, do our jobs, spend time with our families, and enjoy our hobbies. In church service, we worship God together and serve others in love. In spare time, we hang out, enjoy good food, go on vacation together, play games, share stories, etc. The problems in churches come from our sinful natures which God will eliminate (called glorification) once our time here is up. So, one place has us separated from everyone, in a lake of fire, and burning non-stop. Satan will be there, too. The other is every good thing you can imagine on Earth done in a better way, other things you can't imagine, your friends there, and the very presence of God giving you fullness of joy. Christ and His Heaven are the obvious choice. Anyone suffering here on Earth are also told to keep their eye on the prize which is our future inheritance.

AlbertCory 3y ago
While I will Vouch for your right to say that, and I find the professional atheists like Dawkins to be a bunch of a-holes: Personally, I think that when you're dead, you're just dead. Like sleep, except you don't wake up or dream. When your neurons are shutting off, they probably put on one hell of a show for you. Just like the show they put on that convinces you that "consciousness" is a real thing, and you have a "soul." It's not and you don't. But like I said, I think what you believe is probably good for humans, on the whole, and I don't condemn it at all.

owendlamb 3y ago

> Meanwhile heaven is pretty bland and the angels come of as a bunch of milquetoasts. You reminded me of that Simpsons bit about Protestant Heaven vs Catholic Heaven: https://youtu.be/-4IletJ7-Tw https://youtu.be/-4IletJ7-Tw

082349872349872 3y ago
and you reminded me of "I am not Canadian" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TncdhLGjFTE as a response to Molson's "I am Canadian" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

I have heard Milton's work described as an expression of a spirit of Protestant satanism. That is, Milton, by virtue of the rebelliousness of Protestantism, to which he subscribed, is accused of being satanic.

mr_toad 3y ago

“You see, the thing about heaven is that heaven is for people who like the sort of things that go on in heaven. Like, well, singing, talking to God, watering pot plants.” — The Black Adder.

082349872349872 3y ago
In Samuel Clemens' posthumously published work there's a story in which heaven has wings and harps, because all the newbies expect them, but after you get bored with that it's perfectly ok to return them and go do something more fun.