I may have something for you to use as inspiration.
In a story I'm writing, God is basically running a Valhalla expy, harvesting the souls of the dead in order to build an army of angels for getting rid of the Devil once and for all. Again, this is an oversimplification and some of the names have been changed, but you get the general idea. Sometime in the past, archangel Azrael questioned the purpose for which they were created, declaring that they should be protecting and nurturing mortals, not prey on their fear of oblivion in order to hook them with the promise of eternal life into eternal servitude as soldiers in a Forever War. He managed to rally several others to his cause and nearly started a civil war over the matter before he got betrayed and sold out by Sammael, getting sealed away with Sammael replacing him as archangel as a result.
Sammael, however, did actually believe in Azrael's progressive ideology, he just didn't think it was time yet. Thus, a few eons later, Sammael rallies the progressives and starts his own insurrection that successfully manages to oust God and His loyalists (at first glance; God actually willingly gave ground), with most of the angels staying neutral due to fearing reprisal from a fanatically loyalist archangel Michael. Due to plot events, the progressive angels end up in a war against mortal humanity and things escalate to the point where Sammael decides to personally settle the matter...
...except as it turns out, Sammael's actual agenda for achieving their goal of freedom from servitude to God involves Sammael sacrificing the souls of all of humanity in order to empower himself to the point where he can unseat God for good, something he'd be incapable of achieving otherwise. Thing is, the souls involved would not reincarnate, they would be consumed and Deader than Dead. Angels consider the destruction of the immortal soul such an act of utter, horrifying barbarity that every single one of Sammael's followers immediately desert him which, coupled with Sammael's death at human hands shortly afterwards not just results in the loyalists reasserting control over the rest of the angels but the very much benevolent cause of the progressives is irreversibly tainted from Guilt by Association with Sammael's actions, with the remaining progressives going on the run.
And the kicker in all of this is that the Devil isn't even malevolent and doesn't actually care about any of this. She's the Mother of a Thousand Young to all soul-bearing mortal life and is actively powering their reincarnation with Her very existence. The sole reason She's even involved is because God is supposed to be creating His own forms of life but instead He's turning Her kids into His minions to kill Her with because He's been brainwashed into being hostile to Her by His own creators.
Can you get ideas from this?
Edited by amitakartok on Aug 6th 2021 at 8:21:49 PM
Interesting
I mean, you're describing one of the single most influential works of English literature
. Which isn't necessarily a negative, you've got a ton of other inspirations to work with. Lucifer (both the comics and the Netflix show) are more recent and perhaps more accessible, but they're both cribbing heavily from Milton, as is basically everybody writing about Satan for the last few hundred years.
...can still bite
I find your premise incredibly ironic. If you compare The Bible to The Matrix (not too difficult considering the former's influence on the latter), Satan's role would be filled by the Architect, while Morpheus' role would be closer to a prophet of God.
Having God being the one to want to control humanity is closer to Lovecraft than The Bible.
I suppose it depends if you want you want your characters to reflect the personalities of the originals or are completely rewriting their personalities.
Edited by shiro_okami on Aug 15th 2021 at 11:54:40 AM
They could be making deals for the same reason other demons make deals, just with different motivations.
They're making deals with people to damn them to hell, because they genuinely believe eternal torment is better then an eternity "enslaved to god". They know most people don't agree if asked plainly- too brainwashed by god to see the truth- so they have to resort to deception. It's in humanity's best interest, after all.
It's all for the greater good.
I think there’s a lot that could be done with the Devil essentially seeing himself as similar to Morpheus in The Matrix, specifically with this line:
"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
The system in this case being Gods plan for/control over humanity. The thing is I’m not exactly sure how to combine this with demons in this setting basically being loose Incubator Expies. I imagine He’ll as having nobility other than him, but I’m not sure what exactly this hierarchy gets from making deals with people.
Edited by ecss on Aug 5th 2021 at 11:08:04 AM