Dante: I'm not really interested in mending fences with my brother, so here's my counteroffer: You give me a job that can pay my electric bill for the year, and I'll leave you here with your head attached to your body.
Mephisto: ...Actually, there's a fiend called Blackheart who has caused me trouble to no end.
Dante: Done. But I'm charging you triple because you're such a tool.
Some shows make The Devil into an incrediblly villainous Badass — virtually omniscient, completely invincible, ridiculously powerful and pure evil to the core, the kind of soullessabomination who'd have no qualms about destroying innocents without mercy and looking damn cool while doing it.
And some make him into a petty, somewhat nerdy and overall pretty normal (if unrelentingly evil) guy. He may be more worried about getting his Wood Elf character to level 70 or catching the latest episode of Avatar and the Airbending Fellowship of Vampire Slayers than actually punishing the damned, or perhaps he's unattractive and unpopular and lives in his mother's basement. Either way, any Badass who ends up down there is in for a bitter shock.
This is the other side of the infernal coin. Satan as a stylish, seductive badass is actually pretty recent — medieval portrayals have him a thug, dangerous but also easy to fool and really only waiting for someone stupid enough to sin note Older ones still portray him as something of a celestial prosecutor, someone appointed by God (or at least permissed) to put humanity to the test; opinions differ on whether it's simplya duty or if he is a jerkass who loves his work. And, of course, he's no match at all for the forces of heaven — heck, even a mortal guy with a cross could drive him back.
For other non-threatening evil spirits, see Don't Fear the Reaper.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
In The Devil is a Part-Timer!, the Devil King and his assistant flee the hero Emilia Justina by jumping through a portal to Earth. Upon arrival, the lack of ambient magic makes them lose their powers. The Devil King is forced to get a job at MgRonald.
Neron gets to keep most of the evil souls he's taken, however, including Lex Luthors and the Jokers. They don't want them, anyway.
Neron also loses his throne in the Reign in Hell comics. Satanus also joins Neron as a Devil who is a loser by losing his throne to Blaze.
Lucifer in the eponymous comic Lucifer has an Alternate Character Interpretation as a complete tool who really has no point other than to be spiteful to his old man.
On the other hand, he did help save about three universes from destruction at the hands of said "old man", so maybe he had a reason for quarreling with him.
Mephisto used to be the Marvel Universe's butt monkey. He was even enslaved to Thanos during the Infinity Gauntlet saga. One More Day actually did a bit to reverse his Villain Decay.
Until he recently got made downright Adorkable with a crush on Magma
In the Bedazzled (2000) remake the Devil (a beautiful woman) grants wishes to a man in exchange for his soul, but each wish results in a humiliating failure. It turns out that the Devil is actually harmless, since God owns all people's souls; they can't be sold! She's just a practical joker.
The devil takes the form of an emaciated, impoverished down-on-his-luck country gentleman in The Brothers Karamazov. He also seems pretty resigned to be being blamed for all of mankind's ills. Not suave or sophisticated at all, but still capable of causing the occasional Heroic BSOD.
Although he claims to take this form to mess with Ivan's sense of self-importance.
In C. S. Lewis' Perelandra, the Devil is perfectly capable of feats of supreme intelligence, strength, and many other virtues — which is precisely the trouble; he doesn't really like to use them, because they're good things. He's a petty, spiteful bastard who'll just as soon kill frogs or rip up chunks of turf for the pleasure of killing something as corrupt an entire world.
Lucifer in Wendy Alec's Brothers Series. After he corrupts Adam and Eve, he gains control of the race of men and its solar system, only to lose every battle or encounter he engages after that.
Lewis also creates a different loser devil in The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape is a grumpy old demon with No Sense of Humor, whose list of things he can't stand about Heaven includes God's disgusting, hedonistic love for His physical creations, not to mention His habit of playing music at all hours of the night. Silence is no improvement, as Screwtape prefers some good, loud, decently ugly noise.
This is half the point of The Devil's Storybook and The Devil's Other Storybook, both by Natalie Babbitt. The other half is how he still wins as often as he loses.
Andrew Wyvern in James Morrow's Only Begotten Daughter is a fairly disgusting creature, who only seems to succeed because God's an absentee landlord. Morrow stated in interviews he was trying to avoidthe varioustropes so the Devil wouldn't be the most interesting character.
Lucifer in The Book of Joby is fairly petty, and gets crapped on by birds.
The underlying characterization of Satan in Paradise Lost. Despite his fancy rhetoric and impressive figure, he's just posturing as an epic hero and making self-defeating arguments that even he admits are bogus. He's simply too proud to ask for forgiveness and admit his mistakes in front of all his loyal followers. Even in the battle scene he gets clobbered unconscious the moment he takes the field. Of course, there are a lot of people who see him as exactly the epic hero he presents himself to be.
Its sequel, Paradise Regained, continues this, in part to fit into the idea of damnation as continually degrading him into weaker and less godly forms, and also because he was up trying to tempt Jesus and was obviously doomed to failure, unlike with Adam and Eve.
Chichikov from Dead Souls definitely invokes this with the whole "buying people's 'souls'" thing and he's a lot like the "devil as small time bureaucrat / loser" portrayal in other works. In fact, both Chichikov and Scratch store their souls in a box - the only difference is that Chichikov's are metaphorical.
Torak of The Belgariad and Azash of The Elenium. Both are incredibly powerful in physical/magical terms, but they're also crippled, handicapped by an inability to change, stupid, and totally unable to understand human emotions, which ultimately results in both their downfalls.
Live Action TV
In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Caleb, right-hand man to the First Evil, refers to Satan as a "little man" (at least, compared to his boss).
Another one features Patrick Stewart as an initially impressive Satan who then chokes on a grape and finds that he can't command any respect from his lackeys anymore.
At one point, he calls the three lesser devils "Insignificant piles of insect saliva." The one of the lesser devils, played by Norm McDonald asks, "How exactly do you pile saliva?"
After choking on a grape following his threat to eat their bloody entrails, another minion played by David Spade tells him that he shouldn't attempt to eat bloody entrails until he mastered grapes. They keep on mocking him even after he turns them all into barnyard animals.
In an episode of Northern Exposure, the town is visited by Satan, who is a dumpy and unimpressive man more interested in small acts of betrayal than diabolical evil. He ultimately fails to corrupt the citizens of Cicely even slightly.
On an episode of X-Play about the time a World of Warcraft expansion came out, Morgan apparently made a deal with the devil to have him level up her character. Unfortunately, the Devil apparently sucks at WoW.
In the Quebec surreal comedy sketch show Phylactere Cola, one skit shows Satan living in a basement apartment, having to deal repeatedly with annoyingly persistent Jehovah's witnesses. They manage to convert him in the end!!
In Brimstone Satan is shown to be not only an incompetent jailer (letting over a hundred damned souls escape Hell), but he's also incredibly petty and juvenile, unable to pass up an opportunity to tie someone's shoelaces together or loosen the cap on a salt shaker.
Lucifer in Supernatural is a very dangerous being. But several characters say that in the end, he's nothing more than a child throwing a temper tantrum because his daddy didn't pay enough attention to him.
Millennium has the four demons at the coffee shop in "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me", revealing that for all their fearsome rep in the show, demons are... kind of pathetic.
Music
The song "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band portrays Satan as "way behind" on his quota for souls. In desperation, he makes a bet with Johnny, a local Georgia fiddle player, to a fiddling contest. Though Satan is portrayed as a pretty badass dude, he's no match for a good ole Georgia boy and gets beaten handily. Johnny freely gloats and insults the devil throughout the song and ultimately snags his shiny golden fiddle.
It has been pondered that Satan lost the battle but won the war by making Johnny fall prey to greed and pride.
Though Johnny does acknowledge that he knows what he's doing is a sin, so whether he actually fell for it or he was just confident in his abilities is up for debate.
"The boy said, 'My name's Johnny and it might be a sin/ But I'm gonna take your bet/ you're gonna regret/ 'cause I'm the best that's ever been!'"
A sequel balled: "The Devil Comes Back To Georgia" also made by the Charlie Daniels band tells of how ten years after the Fiddle Duel, the Devil challenges Fiddle Player Johnny, now a family man and father, to a rematch. Seething from his defeat years before, the devil tells Johnny that his pride will be his downfall and takes the Golden Fiddle away as Johnny is tuning it, though the Fiddle player still has his old fiddle in his woodshed. After getting warmed up on his old fiddle due to having not been playing since the birth of his son, Johnny and the Devil duel once again. Its not exactly clear at the end, but from the sounds of things, Johnny kicked the Devil's ass... again.
Then of course there is the Trope Namer itself, which is Lordi's song The Devil Is A Loser, as quoted above. The song ridicules someone for making a Deal with the Devil... because they were stupid enough to make a deal with someone that pathetic.
The song "War is my Destiny" by rapper Ill Bill describes the fallen angels who served Satan during the rebellion as promptly dethroning him after they were cast from Heaven for his failure to deliver on his promises. A new Devil is crowned in his place. Satan later manages to somewhat redeem himself in their eyes after the Biblical Flood by coming up with a plan to corrupt mankind by manipulating them through the word of God.
Stryper's (Christian glam metal band) To Hell With the Devil dismisses the Devil from a Christian perspective.
"The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden was perceived by some to out the band as Satan worshipers... the song itself plays out like a horror movie (it was inspired by The Omen). However, the "Run to the Hills" single artwork has Eddie, Maiden's zombie mascot, in a fight with the devil. The Number of the Beast album shows the aftermath, Eddie holding the Devil's decapitated head. Maiden rightfully pointed out that they were not encouraging worshiping the Devil as he was the LOSER in the battle.
While we're at Metal, "Bigger Than The Devil" (especially the cover art) by SOD clearly implies this.
Should emphasize that this is at best a myth; and certainly the idea that God and Satan were ever lovers is not one that appears in any Muslim religious text. In fact, orthodox Muslims would regard it as downright heretical.
In Mormonism the Devil is the loser of the war in heaven. Basically, it boils down into different versions of the Plan of Eternal Salvation. Lucifer's plan involved everyone not having free will, guaranteed entry into heaven, and the glory for all of that belonging to himself since it was his plan. Jesus wanted everyone to have free will even though it meant that yes, there will be sinners and evil people, as well all the people going into heaven deserving it for trying act ethically over the course of their lifetime and all the glory going to God because God enabled it and probably had it all in mind anyways. Lucifer eventually becomes Satan, stewing in Outer Darkness (Hell) and trying to upset the Plan of Eternal Salvation at every chance he can get. Which, of course, helps to enable the entire thing.
The Devil is still treated as a very dangerous character. Yeah, he's lost, but his goal shifted from elevating himself above God by forcing humanity into salvation, to taking as many souls down with him as he can.
Irish folklore, in contrast with most traditions where a Deal with the Devil will end up with the person who made it being the fool, thinking they could trick the devil, tends to portray the Devil as a total sucker who will buy just about anything. In most stories, the protagonists will get away with swindling the devil without consequences and souls intact, and in the few where they do suffer some consequences, they tend to result either from character flaws on the part of the protagonists or the devil being a sore loser. For instance, the tale of Jack O'Lantern, where he ensured that he could not be taken to hell but neglected to make sure that he could get into heaven, and for this oversight will eternally wander the earth, carrying a lantern to keep evil spirits away. Not very surprising for a culture that evolved wordplay to an art form and considered that if someone was swindled it was the victim's fault for being an idiot. St. Patrick may have changed that (driving the snakes/liars from Ireland), but early Irish Christians, reading the bible, seem to have been very unimpressed with the devil's intelligence by comparison. Swindling the devil is still acceptable, apparently, with the ordinary human protagonists playing Karmic Trickster.
Generally, if you read Medieval folklore about the Devil, he will usually be presented as a diminutive, ugly and stupid, easily tricked by ordinary peasants on a daily basis. The more powerful, imposing Devil only started emerging during the Reformation period when religion went from a fairly laid back routine back to Serious Business.
Newspaper Comics
Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light from Dilbert. He even has a giant spoon in place of the usual pitchfork, and claims to be from Heck. He's in charge of punishing small sins, like leaving the toilet seat up. May or may not be related to the Pointy-Haired Boss.
The Devil: (staring out his home window) Tell me, Margaret... Am I a butthead?
Poor, poor Fan(Damn) from the Swedish comic Himmlens Änglar(Heavens Angels), in this series he is The Woobie.
Radio
The Devil in Old Harry's Game is a somewhat whiny guy who has trouble keeping his demons in line and can be foiled by a dead professor or the director of a privatised water company. He is however portrayed sympathetically, as he has to spend eternity in Hell just for rebelling against God once.
Tabletop Games
The Ebon Dragon, from Exalted. He's basically the Devil-figure of the setting, the master of betrayal, lies, and deceit, and the only one of the Yozis who operates on standard human morality...but see Word Of God's explanation for exactly why his villainy is represented not by alternativeinterpretations of the Virtue system, but merely by having bad Virtue scores:
"The Dragon's evil is supposed to be pathetic. It's supposed to be contemptible. That doesn't make him weak, but he's not heroic in either a classical or contemporary sense. He's a force of evil without scruples or principles. He stands for nothing save making things worse for everyone. He will stab you in the back at every turn and he cannot be reformed. ... When you face the Dragon, having Virtues greater than him, you can look down on him. You can see that he's not simply different or alien, but a loser. And yet, losers can win. He's a smart loser, a cunning loser. He's a loser unfettered by any moral restraint holding him back from hurting you any way he can get away with. He cheats. He cheats very well. He might just win. But it won't be a heroic victory. To make it so would miss the point. He's giving the finger to all the humanists and transhumanists and alien weirdos. He says you all suck. But the truth is that he just sucks compared with all of you and on some level, he knows it. I said there were two bad things that alternative Virtue did as a model for the Dragon's wickedness. The second is that you give him an excuse. Oh, he runs from fighting? Actually, he's just smart enough to duck out when he's losing. It's all very reasonable, you see. No. Wrong. He's a coward who bolts in terror from the heroes and lies to himself and others about why he did it. Even if he can make himself stay as an act of antagonistic defiance, he can't make himself stop being terrified. He can't escape into the Other. He's stuck playing in the same moral sandbox as everyone else and he absolutely fails at it."
Theatre
In Antonin Dvorak's opera The Devil and Kate, the sheer bitchiness of the chatterbox Kate is such that even Lucifer is afraid of her, and is willing to do anything in order to send her back to Earth.
In Randy Newman's musical/opera Randy Newman's Faust, Lucifer sings a song called "Bleeding All Over the Place." He's not a totally loser, but he's a heck of a lot less threatening (and more likeable) than your typical Satan, possibly because he's voiced on the CD by Randy Newman.
Conor Mc Pherson's play The Seafarer, the Devil is a character named Mr. Lockhart. Without revealing the outcome of the play (and Mc Pherson being Mc Pherson, it could go either way), but he wastes an entire evening playing cards with a bunch of guys, some of whom are alcoholic and one of whom is blind, just to get one soul. It's still a fantastic play.
Video Games
In the Sam & Max episode "What's New, Beelzebub?", Satan is a rather ineffectual middle management of Hell, LLC. He has no respect from his subordinates, and is at the beck and call of the Big Bad, who eventually fires him.
Satan from Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari is a pathetic Stalker with a Crush for protagonist Arle Nadja, whose schemes are frequently ridiculous or pointless (such as increasing the power of the sun so he can get a tan and attract girls), and always foiled by Arle and Kaa-kun.
Webcomics
The Devil from Dinosaur Comics spends all his time talking to T-Rex about video games and internet slang. And he drinks grape juice from concentrate.
The webcomic In His Likeness. Of course, God has a few issues as well.
Pictured above is the Devil from Sinfest. While he IS a pretty badass dude, more than a few strips feature him collecting mockery of God, taunts of Ezekiel and Ariel "the Wascally Angels", pity of Buddha and made aware that he's Lonely at the Top. The closest thing he has to a friend is his Loony Fan Lil' Evil, a Harmless Villain who's faith might as well be Ho Yay.
In Sluggy Freelance Satan is the victim of cyber attacks by Riff, ends up doing the nasty with a cat while drunk, and gets chewed out on a daytime talk show for not taking care of the resulting demonic kitten children.
Early in the first year, Torg and Riff summon Satan who negotiates their souls for twenty dollars and a case of beer. He unfortunately doesn't quite have the whole twenty on him, and thus loses their souls as well as the beer and money. However... the beer is a cruddy domestic brand.
In the Rooster Teeth Comics, Hell is tech support for Apple, the Devil is the still the Boss, but he wears Khakis.
Web Original
Once faced with Tennyo and Generator in the story "Sit In" in the Whateley Universe, the demon lord (okay, brevet under-baron) Phesclangorenthal rapidly turns into this.
Discussed by Movie Bob, he believes that when you take away all the stories and rumours, the devil is less Lex Luthor, and more Starscream.
In Bonus Stage, Satan rambles on about nothing and makes people watch Time Squad, watch Shrek 2 or eat his mom's spaghetti. He also lets Joel, Phil and Elly out of hell.
And yet, he can still pull off one heck of a Batman Gambit. Good musician, too. (It should be noted that the fiddle he was hit with was made of gold and thus weighs hundreds of pounds.)
In God The Devil And Bob, The Devil is shown more as an incompetent effeminate weirdo with creator issues then a powerful master of temptation. His own evil schemes are often self-defeating. Though he does have his moments.
He's also a massively Large Ham, though considering that he is voiced by Sean Cullen this comes as no surprise.
Though he is technically only the great-great-great-great grandson of the original devil, who is feared by everyone including his descendants.
Played with in Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil: Satan seems like a harmless yuppie right up until the point where he tries to murder you in your dreams with burrowing flesh-worms.
