Devil's Pitchfork

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"There’s the smell of the devil’s mischievousness, a pitchfork in your ass and sulfur in your mouth. The Bastard’s there, all right, don’t doubt it."

— Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle

The pitchfork, originally a tool used for moving hay, has in modern culture become strongly associated with Satan, demons, and Hell in a broader sense. Pronged spears of this sort are thus a common choice of weapon for demonic characters, or otherwise ones who are extremely evil. Tridents don't go to ordinary villains, and certainly not to everyday thugs; if you're wielding one, you're pretty much Satan or his local counterpart, or one of his direct underlings. Outside of the big guys themselves, these weapons are also often seen in the hands of the common demons and devils (cartoony or otherwise) who work in Hell by punishing sinners. A pitchfork of this kind is practically mandatory equipment for the Big Red Devil. The rare hero who wields such a weapon is probably either on a Faustian Rebellion or is an Ascended Demon (possibly even the Anti Anti Christ).

These pitchforks are often very stylized or cartoonish in nature, to the point of not resembling the original farmyard tools very much. The typical Devil's Pitchfork is tall and straight, with three points — one heading straight forwards, the other two curving smoothly to the side and up. Typically, the tines either narrow to wicked points or end in triangular spearheads. This isn't a tool that will serve practical uses, and is often so ornate and stylized that it may not even be a very effective weapon. Its role, both metafictionally and in-universe, is mainly to serve as a badge of office, and to deliver sharp stings to slacking underlings and damned souls.

Despite Hades/Pluto often being confused for a Satan analogue, he has little to do with this image; his personal weapon was a bident (two prongs) while the trident was instead a symbol of his brother Poseidon/Neptune (Zeus/Jupiter completed the trifecta by wielding the single-pronged Lightning Bolt). Most scholars today believe that this trope does have its roots with Poseidon's trident, as the old pagan religion became literally demonized with its displacement by Christianity in Europe. An actual pitchfork, on the other hand, has four tines, equally long, and are very rarely seen being carried by demons.

See also Prongs of Poseidon, for when tridents are associated with the sea instead of evil.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid: Several of Fabia's devils come equipped with these, including an enlarged one she brings out during her fight against Lutecia that nearly skewers the latter had it not been for Einhart.
• Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: While not exactly evil, the Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy Wufei is probably the most morally ambiguous of the five main characters & has a double-bladed Beam Trident as his Gundam's sole handheld weapon after its Midseason Upgrade. Notably, this is the only part of any of the five main Gundams not to get massively overhauled yet again by Hajime Katoki for The Movie, which features Wufei as one of the main antagonists for much of his screentime & even has him Putting on the Reich.
• One Piece:
  • Enel, at one point in his battle with Monkey D. Luffy, used his Shock and Awe powers to heat up his gold staff and re-shape it into a trident. Later on, when he's gone One-Winged Angel, he uses two of them and nearly kills Luffy. While Enel is both evil and the Big Bad, his use of a trident is a bit ironic, considering his personality.
  • Played straighter with Impel Down's staff. The average mooks are armed with tridents, and so is Hannyabal. Saldeath has a flute-spear and Sady-chan has a trident with a whip inside. This is used to reinforce the legendary prison's similarity to Dante's vision of Hell.
• Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas: Hades' servant Pandora wields one trident adorned with a snake motif.

Comic Books

• Blue Devil originally had a trident he designed himself which could shoot fire and had jets to improve his leaping. Although a technological device, it was magically enhanced by the same demon who trapped him in his costume. Later, after he became an actual demon himself, he gained the Trident of Lucifer, which can detect and banish demons. His post-Flashpoint incarnation has a flame-shooting trident of unclear origins.
• Cattivik: In Un'avventura infernale, the devils in Hell use tridents with flame-shaped tips to prod along the sinners as they work on their assigned labors.
• Grendel: Hunter Rose, the original Grendel, wielded a self-designed weapon known as "the Devil's Fork", which could be described as a short-staffed naginata with two parallel blades resembling a fork. It could also be temporarily electrified to do extra damage. Christine Spar, Hunter's foster-granddaughter, when she adopted the Grendel identity, stole Hunter's weapon from a museum and used it. Centuries later, Eppy Thatcher, during his period as Grendel, used a similar weapon that also levitated, allowing him to fly it like a broomstick, and included remote controls for his other equipment.
• Hoot: Lil Imp carries a trident much taller than she is, with a button she can use to fire lightning at people, and another one which summons a Hellevator.

Fan Works

• Earth-27: Blue Devil, a superhero who gained superpowers after an encounter with the devil Nibiros, wields the Trident of Lucifer, which allows her to find demons on Earth and banish them to Hell.

Films — Animation

• The Emperor's New Groove: At various points in the film, Kronk's conscience manifests as a bickering angel and devil on opposite shoulders. The devil version of Kronk carries a golden trident. When Yzma insults Kronk's cooking, his devil pumps the trident like a shotgun and declares that she's going down.

Films — Live-Action

• The Da Vinci Code: Deconstructed. To show the fluidity of imagery and iconography, Langdon shows students a picture and asks them what words come to mind. All the students give some version of "Devil's Pitchfork." The image was actually of Poseidon's trident.
• The Devil Wears Prada: The film poster features a red stiletto heel that ends in a pitchfork with three triangular spearheads, though the devil in question (the protagonist's merciless boss) is non-literal.
• The Haunted House: While Keaton is knocked unconscious by one of the crooks, he has a dream where he descends to Hell and is poked in the rear by a devil with a flaming pitchfork.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?: Satan is described as being red and scaly with a bifurcated tail and carrying a hayfork, though the accuracy of this depiction is immediately disputed.
• Spider-Man: The Green Goblin has a collapsible trident as one weapon in his arsenal, tying in with his demonic costume and his maniacally sadistic personality. He tries to execute Spider-Man with it near the end of their fight, but the hero manages to catch the blades and disarm him.
• Wholly Moses!: Satan is toting one of these during his brief cameo appearance, complete with the triangular points. It's surprisingly elaborate, considering the rest of his outfit is pretty much Halloween-level.

Literature

• The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: In the stone-age world, a three-pronged fork is a healer's tool used to snare lost souls of sick people. However, it is also the symbol of the Soul Eaters, a group of corrupted clan mages who were originally known as the Healers. They each have the fork tattooed on their chests, and after they forcefully tattoo Torak with it and this is exposed, he's exiled from the clans. In the sixth book, Eostra, the most terrifying of the Soul Eaters, wields a three-pronged spear which she uses to capture other creatures' souls.
• Eric: The current King of Hell, Astfgl, wears what he considers a sophisticated new ensemble — which the reader will recognize as a cheap-looking Halloween or pantomime devil costume, complete with a trident whose head keeps falling off. Somehow, when he gets really angry, the trident stops looking comical and starts looking like a horrible weapon.
• Horns: Ig becomes the Big Red Devil to avenge his girlfriend's murder. He hears a nearby commotion, and grabs the first weapon-like object in the ruined foundry without really seeing what it was. It turns out he grabbed a pitchfork.
• Inferno (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle): The demons guarding the bolgia of the grafters use pitchforks to keep their charges in line. Allen is briefly struck by the absurdity of seeing such a cartoonish concept in the grimly serious confines of Hell.
• Journey to the West: Some demons wield tridents, including Yellow Wind and the Scorpion Princess. In the latter's case, said trident was actually composed by her "pincers" and, in some versions, isn't a unique weapon but two smaller ones.
• Oddly Enough: In "Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld", the titular character dies in an accident and goes to Hell. The demons there carry pitchforks, which they often use to prod him with to keep moving along when he's stopped for a moment.
• The Salvation War: The Legions of Hell are armed with tridents, which they use to channel their natural bioelectricity. Demonic nobles tend to have fancier, more conductive weapons.

Live-Action TV

• Supernatural: The pitchfork is drawn as a warding sigil to protect against demons, both in demon-proofing physical locations and keeping demons locked in a host's body.
• Ultraman Ginga: Dark Lugiel can summon a trident as his primary weapon. Interestingly, the titular Ultra, who is Dark Lugiel's arch-enemy, is capable of turning the Ginga Spark Lance into a similar trident for combat. This foreshadows that Ginga and Dark Lugiel are the same being split into two.

Mythology

• Satan is often portrayed as carrying a trident, though in modern culture it's often mistaken for a pitchfork. Early Christians tended to demonize the classical gods, including giving Satan attributes of them, such as Poseidon's trident and Pan's cloven hooves and horns.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Mezzoloths, a type of daemon/yugoloth, typically wield tridents as their weapons of choice.
  • Spined devils and horned devils both wield pitchforks in battle.
  • The Archdevil Mephistopheles, typically appearing as the biggest, reddest of devils (something he revels in), has one as his signature weapon, usually classified as a ranseur.

Video Games

• Cuphead: The devil has a long golden pitchfork, which he frequently uses as a weapon during his boss battle.
• Digimon:
  • Boogiemon, a Demon Man Digimon based on the Boogieman, carries a black and silver pitchfork with conical points.
  • Phelesmon, a Fallen Angel Digimon based on Mephistopheles, carries a bright red pitchfork with conical points.
• Dragon Quest: Many enemies in the demon family wield one of these or a literal fork, below are some more specific examples:
  • Dragon Quest II: Belial, one of the followers of Hargon, is armed with a dark-violet pitchfork.
  • Dragon Quest VI: Merman mini-boss Gracos wields a wicked-looking two-pronged pitchfork.
• Dungeon Crawl gives us the Demon Trident, a superior version of the basic trident, as one of the three demonic weapons that often show up in the hands of powerful demons and hell knights.
• Elden Ring: The demigod Mohg, Lord of Blood, is a demonic-looking Omen associated with blood and fire who dwells in a hidden subterranean citadel filled with unfortunates led astray and/or tempted into his service. Naturally, his weapon of choice/status symbol is an ornate trident.
• FAITH: The Unholy Trinity: Fittingly for a high-ranking Satanist, Gary wields a pitchfork; you can easily tell him apart from other cultists by the fact that Gary is the one holding it. Rather predictably, the Final Boss fight has him turn it upon John.
• Friday the 13th: The Game: The backer-exclusive Savini Jason uses a black trident for his weapon. According to his bio, Jason stole it from Lucifer when he was escaping from Hell.
• Hades: The titular antagonist used to wield Varatha, the "Eternal Spear," which is actually a two-pronged bident. Zagreus can also use it himself, as the God of the Dead now wields a much bigger bident called Gigaros. While Hades is not really evil, he's still the god of the Underworld and a major Jerkass.
• Jazz Jackrabbit: Tiny devil enemies appear in the Medivo levels and the hell levels from the second game. They carry pitchforks which they use to attack the player.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Ganon, the series' demonic archvillain, typically wields a trident as his signature weapon. It first appears in A Link to the Past and has become a staple of his monstrous form, with the exception of Twilight Princess. With the exception of the non-canon Hyrule Warriors, Ganondorf never uses it in his humanoid form; however, his humanoid ghost-double Phantom Ganon wielded a trident in Ocarina of Time.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, set after Ganondorf's death in Twilight Princess, introduces a reincarnation of the Demon King who steals the magical Trident of the Pyramid to become Ganon.
  • In one of the trailers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda passes a torch in front of a mural depicting Ganondorf wielding a trident. In the game, however, he wields a naginata as his polearm of choice.
• MediEvil's Zarok uses a trident instead of the more traditionally wizardly staff.
• Undertale: King Asgore Dreemurr, ruler of the Monsters and a clear Ganon expy, wields a huge red trident (inspired by the one from Homestuck) in his boss battle, and even uses it to destroy the MERCY option beforehand in order to prevent you from sparing him, though trope is actually Played With since Asgore is revealed to be a Gentle Giant who does not wish to kill the player at all, but feels duty-bound to do so despite his own regrets.

Web Animation

• Dreamscape: Kaila wields a pitchfork that she uses for her dark powers.

Web Original

• Neopets: The designs for the Halloween Koi, Shoyru, and Usul all evoke the Big Red Devil archetype in varying ways, though they each hold a pitchfork as an accessory. On the Petpet side, the similarly-devil-inspired Halloween Flizzardo, Mortog, and Polarchuck also wield pitchforks, and the Halloween Puppyblew has a pitchfork-shaped tail◊.

Western Animation

• In The Goddess of Spring, a Silly Symphony loosely based on the myth of Hades and Persephone, Hades' little devil minions carry these, shoving each other around with them and using them to fence Persephone in at the beginning of the short so Hades can abduct her.
• Winx Club: Tritnnus, the main villain in Season 5, uses a trident to blast his enemies and brainwash people. As a merman, he's also connected to oceans.

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