History Main / TheDevilIsALoser

*** I thought it was that Charlie Daniels himself was angered by it, because the battle took place in hell, complete with demonic stage girls.

**** There's a difference between Georgia and Hell?

[[quoteright:166:[[{{Sinfest}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sinfestloserdevil_1374.png]]]] [[caption-width-right:166:Keep telling yourself that.]] ->''The Devil is a loser, and he's my bitch!'' -->-- '''{{Lordi}}''', "Devil Is A Loser" Some shows make [[{{Satan}} the Devil]] into an evil badass -- the kind of person who'd have no qualms about crushing someone mercilessly and [[EvilIsCool 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 worried about getting his Wood Elf character to level 70 or catching the latest episode of ''AvatarAndTheAirbendingFellowshipOfVampireSlayers'' than actually punishing the damned, or perhaps he's unattractive, 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 -- [[FairyTale medieval portrayals]] have him a thug, dangerous but also easy to fool and really only waiting for someone stupid enough to sin. 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. Trope named for a {{Lordi}} song. For other non-threatening supernatural beings, see DontFearTheReaper. ---- '''Examples:''' [[AC:{{Film}}]] * ''{{Bedazzled}}'' contains possibly the most literal example ever, in which Satan [[spoiler: loses a wager with God and is sent to a VillainousBreakdown]]. * In the ''{{Bedazzled}}'' remake the Devil [[HotAsHell (a beautiful woman)]] grants wishes to a man in exchange for his soul, but each wish [[JackassGenie results in a humiliating failure]]. It turns out that the Devil is actually harmless, since [[spoiler: God owns all people's souls; they can't be sold!]] She's just a practical joker. * TheHauntedWorldOfElSuperbeasto cranks this one up to eleven. [[AC:{{Literature}}]] * Satan in the ''DivineComedy'' is a towering imbecile, trapped chest-deep in ice and forever beating his wings in a vain attempt to escape, which only [[SelfInflictedHell cools and hardens the ice trapping him]]. * The President of Hell in the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''[[strike:Faust]] Discworld/{{Eric}}'' definitely qualifies. ** Not necessarily. He ''did'' manage to inflict more suffering on the people in Hell than anyone before him. * Another Loser Devil shows up in the Eoin Colfer novel ''The Wish List''. * The devil takes the form of an emaciated, impoverished down-on-his-luck country gentleman in ''TheBrothersKaramazov''. 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 ''HeroicBSOD''. ** Although he claims to take this form to mess with Ivan's sense of self-importance. * In C. S. Lewis' ''[[SpaceTrilogy 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 [[EvilIsPetty 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. * Lewis also creates a different loser devil in ''TheScrewtapeLetters''. Screwtape is a grumpy old demon with NoSenseOfHumor, 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 Jane Yolen. 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 [[DevilButNoGod God's an absentee landlord]]. Morrow stated in interviews he was trying to [[DracoInLeatherPants avoid]] [[DesignatedVillain the various]] [[MisaimedFandom tropes]] so the Devil wouldn't be the most interesting character. * ''LeftBehind'' has the devil as pretty incompetent. ** To the point where he becomes sympathetic solely because of how badly he gets beaten. ** There was one "fanfic" where it was revealed that the devil and antichrist we see in the books are strawmen set up by the ''real'' antichrist, who arrives at the end of the series, pretending to be Jesus. That actually made a lot of sense... * Lucifer in ''The Book of Joby'' is fairly petty, and gets crapped on by birds. * The underlying characterization of Satan in ''ParadiseLost''. 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 [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation see him as exactly the epic hero he presents himself to be]]. ** Its sequel, ''ParadiseRegained,'' 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 ''[[JesusWasWayCool Jesus]]'' and was obviously doomed to failure, unlike with Adam and Eve. [[AC:LiveActionTV]] * In ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Caleb, right-hand man to the First Evil, refers to Satan as a "little man" (at least, compared to his boss). * One ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch features a musician making a DealWithTheDevil only to discover that Satan is a phenomenally crappy songwriter. ** Another one features Patrick Stewart as an initially [[LargeHam impressive]] Satan who then chokes on a grape and finds that he can't command any respect from his lackeys anymore. * In an episode of ''NorthernExposure'', 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. * There's a ''{{The Whitest Kids U Know}}'' routine in which the Devil is depicted as an effeminate Southern guy who spends [[OverlyLongGag two minutes of screentime]] going on what Wikipedia calls "unprecedented rants against people who make assumptions of what the Devil is". -->''"Would you please stop that?"'' * On an episode of ''XPlay'' about the time a ''WorldOfWarcraft'' 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 appartment, having to deal repeatedly with annoyingly persistent Jehovah's witnesses. [[spoiler:They manage to convert him in the end!!]] * In the MysteryScienceTheater3000 episode "SantaClaus" Mike Nelson sings "The Devil is a Wiener" to the tune of the soundtrack. [[AC:{{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. ** A squeal balled: "The Devil Comes Back To Georgia" also made by the Charlie Daniels band [[HereWeGoAgain 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 Devils ass...again. ** One episode of ''{{Futurama}}'' references this song. Robot Devil challenges Fry and Leela to a fiddle contest for Bender's soul. When Robot Devil shows what a virtuoso fiddler he is, Leela just picks up the golden fiddle and beats the crap out of him, making him [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl scream like a little girl]]. In a later episode he's the one who schemes desperately to end a deal he's struck, rather than his "victim" Fry. *** Wouldn't a solid gold fiddle weigh hundreds of pounds and sound really crappy? **** That's why you use it in the drum solo. ** This song and the subjective nature of the competition is parodied in this [[http://jjrowland.com/wigu/20040908.html Wigu strip]]. Topato challenges Satan to a music duel for a chance to leave hell. Satan has God judge the competition ("He's impartial as they come"), with the rules being that whoever God feels is better wins. Satan plays a normal song, but all Topato does is play a single loud note. God rules in favor of Topato, but Satan then protests that they should have to play the same instrument and style. After Topato is given an awkwardly heavy golden fiddle to play with, he retaliates by beating the crap out of Satan with it. God just responds with "I am going to allow this". I guess God isn't too neutral after all. *** ** Sounds more like a Full Episode homage to/rip off of ''Futurama'', down to the line "I am going to allow this." ** One can found a hilarious subversion of the "Devil's Challenge" in [[http://terminaitor.deviantart.com/art/OotF-Largo-s-Jumper-Tales-117427222?q=1&qo=1 this comic]]. The Devil should've realized the flaws in his loopholes. ** The Mono Puff song "The Devil Went Down to Newport" reveals that Satan is no good at surfing, either, because of his hooves. ** In ''TenaciousD in The Pick of Destiny'', Cage and Jables must use ThePowerOfRock to beat the devil in a "rock-off". In this case, the devil actually ''wins'' the competition -- but, in so doing, he loses one of his horns, which Jables is able to use to cast a spell to bind him in Hell. It seems that [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption the Devil can't win for losing.]] *** This plot in itself seems to reference their song ''Tribute'', in which the two meet a demon highly implied to be Satan on the road. He challenges them to sing the greatest song ever written or he'll eat their souls. When they burst forth with the greatest song in the world he's stunned and asks if they are angels. To which they reply "Nay, we are but men! Rock!" It's too bad they forgot how the song goes. ** In ''{{Guitar Hero}} 3'', the finale is a heavy metal cover of this song, which is so intensely difficult that it's become the ScrappyLevel. This actually angered the Charlie Daniels Band, because it undermined the point of the song. *** I thought it was that Charlie Daniels himself was angered by it, because the battle took place in hell, complete with demonic stage girls. **** There's a difference between Georgia and Hell? ** Robot Chicken naturally parodies this, with Spawn challenging Satan to a fiddling contest. Spawn manages a grand playing of the song, when all Satan can do is scratch out a painful note. Because the audience are his minions, however, he still gets called the winner. * Then of course there is the TropeNamer itself, which is {{Lordi}}'s song ''The Devil Is A Loser'', as quoted above. The song ridicules someone for making a DealWithTheDevil... 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. [[AC:{{Mythology}}]] * In UsefulNotes/UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} (as opposed to the religion of Islam) the devil (called Iblis, who was never an angel) is not only stupid but ugly as well which makes a [[{{Fanon}} folk theory]][=/=]AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that ''he and God were once lovers'' kind of odd. Then again, LoveMakesYouCrazy, [[LoveMakesYouDumb Dumb]], and [[LoveMakesYouEvil Evil]]. ** [[BellisariosMaxim It's folklore, don't think too hard about it.]] ** 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 UsefulNotes/{{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 [[EarnYourHappyEnding deserving it for trying act ethically over the course of their lifetime]] and all the glory going to God because God enabled it and [[TheChessmaster 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 is, of course, [[TooDumbToLive helps to enable the entire thing]]. ** Does that mean the Devil's plan was {{instrumentality}}? *** ...''holy shit'', just when I thought ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' had enough [[WildMassGuessing insane theories]]. *** Jokes aside, 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, [[OmnicidalManiac to taking as many souls down with him as he can.]] * Irish folklore, in contrast with most traditions where a DealWithTheDevil 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 KarmicTrickster. [[AC:NewspaperComics]] * Phil, the Prince of [[strike: Darkness]] Insufficient Light from ''{{Dilbert}}''. He even has a giant spoon in place of the usual pitchfork, and claims to be from ''Heck''. May or may not be related to the PointyHairedBoss. ** Confirmed by the strip: They're at least half-brothers (and [[TheDevilIsALoser the Pointy Haired Boss was always their mom's favorite]]). * From ''TheFarSide'': --> '''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 TheWoobie. [[AC:{{Radio}}]] * The Devil in ''OldHarrysGame'' 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. [[SatanIsGood He is however portrayed sympathetically]], as he has to spend eternity in Hell just for rebelling against God once. [[AC:TabletopGames]] * The Ebon Dragon, from ''{{Exalted}}''. He's basically the [[{{Satan}} Devil-figure]] of the setting, the master of betrayal, lies, and deceit, and the only one of the [[EldritchAbomination Yozis]] who operates on [[CardCarryingVillain standard human morality]]...but see WordOfGod's explanation for exactly why ''his'' villainy is represented not by [[AboveGoodAndEvil alternative]] [[{{Ubermensch}} interpretations]] 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." [[AC: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. [[AC:VideoGames]] * In the SamAndMax 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 BigBad, who eventually fire him. [[AC:{{Webcomics}}]] * The Devil from ''DinosaurComics'' spends all his time talking to T-Rex about video games and internet slang. And he drinks grape juice from concentrate. * The webcomic ''[[http://www.inhislikeness.com 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 being mocked by God, toyed with by the angel couple Ezekiel and Arial, and made aware that he's LonelyAtTheTop. The closest thing he has to a friend is his LooneyFan Lil' Evil, a HarmlessVillain who's faith might as well be HoYay. * In ''SluggyFreelance'' 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. [[AC:WebOriginal]] * Once faced with Tennyo and Generator in the story "Sit In" in the WhateleyUniverse, the demon lord (okay, brevet under-baron) Phesclangorenthal rapidly turns into this. * Discussed by [[MovieBob]], he believes that when you take away all the stories and rumours, the devil is less [[LexLuthor Lex Luthor]], and more [[TheStarscream Starscream]]. [[AC:WesternAnimation]] * [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Red Guy With No Pants]] from ''CowAndChicken'' and ''IAmWeasel''. ** Notably, he's referred to as the devil only in the first show's pilot (in which his "evil plan" is to make Chicken smoke cigarettes). * On ''SouthPark'', Satan may look scary, but he's a self-sabotaging abused lover of Saddam Hussein. ** Up until [[BerserkButton he had enough]] and killed Saddam. *** Satan used to be scary, but then got into an abusive codependent relationship and [[VillainDecay hasn't recovered since]]. At times his demeanor borders on ''{{The Woobie}}.'' ** Amusingly, [[GodKartingWithBeelzebub God actually called him out on this]]: -->'''God:''' What the hell happened to you? -->'''Satan:''' Huh?! -->'''God:''' You got kicked out of here for being a headstrong rebel. [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech And now you're a whiny little bitch]]. * The Robot Devil from ''{{Futurama}}''. The guy is [[IdiotHero outsmarted by Fry]] and in one episode is seen in jail. ** [[ManChild He's also whiny,]] [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl screams like a little girl]] [[ImprobableWeaponUser when you hit him with a fiddle,]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and lives in New Jersey.]] ** And yet, he can still pull off one heck of a BatmanGambit. Good musician, too. (It should be noted that the fiddle he was hit with was made of gold and [[LampshadeHanging thus weighs hundreds of pounds]].) * In ''GodTheDevilAndBob'', The Devil is shown more as an incompetent in-feminine weirdo then a power master of temptation, sometimes even is self destructive in his own evil schemes. * Lucius on ''{{Jimmy Two-Shoes}}'' is largely a SmugSnake HarmlessVillain who is incapable of running things without [[OnlySaneEmployee Heloise]]. * Played with in ''LucyTheDaughterOfTheDevil'': Satan seems like a harmless yuppie right up until the point where he [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel tries to murder you in your dreams with burrowing flesh-worms.]] [[AC:WebAnimation]] * In ''[[WebOriginal/BonusStage Bonus Stage]]'', Satan rambles on about nothing and [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment makes people]] watch ''TimeSquad'', watch ''{{Shrek}} 2'' or eat his mom's spaghetti. [[spoiler:He also lets Joel, Phil and Elly out of hell.]] ---- <<|ReligionTropes|>>

[[quoteright:166:[[{{Sinfest}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sinfestloserdevil_1374.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:166:Keep telling yourself that.]]

->''The Devil is a loser, and he's my bitch!''
-->-- '''{{Lordi}}''', "Devil Is A Loser"

Some shows make [[{{Satan}} the Devil]] into an evil badass -- the kind of person who'd have no qualms about crushing someone mercilessly and [[EvilIsCool 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 worried about getting his Wood Elf character to level 70 or catching the latest episode of ''AvatarAndTheAirbendingFellowshipOfVampireSlayers'' than actually punishing the damned, or perhaps he's unattractive, 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 -- [[FairyTale medieval portrayals]] have him a thug, dangerous but also easy to fool and really only waiting for someone stupid enough to sin. 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. Trope named for a {{Lordi}} song.

For other non-threatening supernatural beings, see DontFearTheReaper.
----
'''Examples:'''

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''{{Bedazzled}}'' contains possibly the most literal example ever, in which Satan [[spoiler: loses a wager with God and is sent to a VillainousBreakdown]].
* In the ''{{Bedazzled}}'' remake the Devil [[HotAsHell (a beautiful woman)]] grants wishes to a man in exchange for his soul, but each wish [[JackassGenie results in a humiliating failure]]. It turns out that the Devil is actually harmless, since [[spoiler: God owns all people's souls; they can't be sold!]] She's just a practical joker.
* TheHauntedWorldOfElSuperbeasto cranks this one up to eleven.


[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Satan in the ''DivineComedy'' is a towering imbecile, trapped chest-deep in ice and forever beating his wings in a vain attempt to escape, which only [[SelfInflictedHell cools and hardens the ice trapping him]].
* The President of Hell in the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''[[strike:Faust]] Discworld/{{Eric}}'' definitely qualifies.
** Not necessarily. He ''did'' manage to inflict more suffering on the people in Hell than anyone before him.
* Another Loser Devil shows up in the Eoin Colfer novel ''The Wish List''.
* The devil takes the form of an emaciated, impoverished down-on-his-luck country gentleman in ''TheBrothersKaramazov''. 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 ''HeroicBSOD''.
** Although he claims to take this form to mess with Ivan's sense of self-importance.
* In C. S. Lewis' ''[[SpaceTrilogy 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 [[EvilIsPetty 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.
* Lewis also creates a different loser devil in ''TheScrewtapeLetters''. Screwtape is a grumpy old demon with NoSenseOfHumor, 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 Jane Yolen. 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 [[DevilButNoGod God's an absentee landlord]]. Morrow stated in interviews he was trying to [[DracoInLeatherPants avoid]] [[DesignatedVillain the various]] [[MisaimedFandom tropes]] so the Devil wouldn't be the most interesting character.
* ''LeftBehind'' has the devil as pretty incompetent.
** To the point where he becomes sympathetic solely because of how badly he gets beaten.
** There was one "fanfic" where it was revealed that the devil and antichrist we see in the books are strawmen set up by the ''real'' antichrist, who arrives at the end of the series, pretending to be Jesus. That actually made a lot of sense...
* Lucifer in ''The Book of Joby'' is fairly petty, and gets crapped on by birds.
* The underlying characterization of Satan in ''ParadiseLost''. 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 [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation see him as exactly the epic hero he presents himself to be]].
** Its sequel, ''ParadiseRegained,'' 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 ''[[JesusWasWayCool Jesus]]'' and was obviously doomed to failure, unlike with Adam and Eve.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* In ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Caleb, right-hand man to the First Evil, refers to Satan as a "little man" (at least, compared to his boss).
* One ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch features a musician making a DealWithTheDevil only to discover that Satan is a phenomenally crappy songwriter.
** Another one features Patrick Stewart as an initially [[LargeHam impressive]] Satan who then chokes on a grape and finds that he can't command any respect from his lackeys anymore.
* In an episode of ''NorthernExposure'', 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.
* There's a ''{{The Whitest Kids U Know}}'' routine in which the Devil is depicted as an effeminate Southern guy who spends [[OverlyLongGag two minutes of screentime]] going on what Wikipedia calls "unprecedented rants against people who make assumptions of what the Devil is".
-->''"Would you please stop that?"''
* On an episode of ''XPlay'' about the time a ''WorldOfWarcraft'' 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 appartment, having to deal repeatedly with annoyingly persistent Jehovah's witnesses. [[spoiler:They manage to convert him in the end!!]]
* In the MysteryScienceTheater3000 episode "SantaClaus" Mike Nelson sings "The Devil is a Wiener" to the tune of the soundtrack.

[[AC:{{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.
** A squeal balled: "The Devil Comes Back To Georgia" also made by the Charlie Daniels band [[HereWeGoAgain 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 Devils ass...again.
** One episode of ''{{Futurama}}'' references this song. Robot Devil challenges Fry and Leela to a fiddle contest for Bender's soul. When Robot Devil shows what a virtuoso fiddler he is, Leela just picks up the golden fiddle and beats the crap out of him, making him [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl scream like a little girl]]. In a later episode he's the one who schemes desperately to end a deal he's struck, rather than his "victim" Fry.
*** Wouldn't a solid gold fiddle weigh hundreds of pounds and sound really crappy?
**** That's why you use it in the drum solo.
** This song and the subjective nature of the competition is parodied in this [[http://jjrowland.com/wigu/20040908.html Wigu strip]]. Topato challenges Satan to a music duel for a chance to leave hell. Satan has God judge the competition ("He's impartial as they come"), with the rules being that whoever God feels is better wins. Satan plays a normal song, but all Topato does is play a single loud note. God rules in favor of Topato, but Satan then protests that they should have to play the same instrument and style. After Topato is given an awkwardly heavy golden fiddle to play with, he retaliates by beating the crap out of Satan with it. God just responds with "I am going to allow this". I guess God isn't too neutral after all.
*** ** Sounds more like a Full Episode homage to/rip off of ''Futurama'', down to the line "I am going to allow this."
** One can found a hilarious subversion of the "Devil's Challenge" in [[http://terminaitor.deviantart.com/art/OotF-Largo-s-Jumper-Tales-117427222?q=1&qo=1 this comic]]. The Devil should've realized the flaws in his loopholes.
** The Mono Puff song "The Devil Went Down to Newport" reveals that Satan is no good at surfing, either, because of his hooves.
** In ''TenaciousD in The Pick of Destiny'', Cage and Jables must use ThePowerOfRock to beat the devil in a "rock-off". In this case, the devil actually ''wins'' the competition -- but, in so doing, he loses one of his horns, which Jables is able to use to cast a spell to bind him in Hell. It seems that [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption the Devil can't win for losing.]]
*** This plot in itself seems to reference their song ''Tribute'', in which the two meet a demon highly implied to be Satan on the road. He challenges them to sing the greatest song ever written or he'll eat their souls. When they burst forth with the greatest song in the world he's stunned and asks if they are angels. To which they reply "Nay, we are but men! Rock!" It's too bad they forgot how the song goes.
** In ''{{Guitar Hero}} 3'', the finale is a heavy metal cover of this song, which is so intensely difficult that it's become the ScrappyLevel. This actually angered the Charlie Daniels Band, because it undermined the point of the song.
*** I thought it was that Charlie Daniels himself was angered by it, because the battle took place in hell, complete with demonic stage girls.
**** There's a difference between Georgia and Hell?
** Robot Chicken naturally parodies this, with Spawn challenging Satan to a fiddling contest. Spawn manages a grand playing of the song, when all Satan can do is scratch out a painful note. Because the audience are his minions, however, he still gets called the winner.
* Then of course there is the TropeNamer itself, which is {{Lordi}}'s song ''The Devil Is A Loser'', as quoted above. The song ridicules someone for making a DealWithTheDevil... 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.


[[AC:{{Mythology}}]]
* In UsefulNotes/UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} (as opposed to the religion of Islam) the devil (called Iblis, who was never an angel) is not only stupid but ugly as well which makes a [[{{Fanon}} folk theory]][=/=]AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that ''he and God were once lovers'' kind of odd. Then again, LoveMakesYouCrazy, [[LoveMakesYouDumb Dumb]], and [[LoveMakesYouEvil Evil]].
** [[BellisariosMaxim It's folklore, don't think too hard about it.]]
** 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 UsefulNotes/{{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 [[EarnYourHappyEnding deserving it for trying act ethically over the course of their lifetime]] and all the glory going to God because God enabled it and [[TheChessmaster 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 is, of course, [[TooDumbToLive helps to enable the entire thing]].
** Does that mean the Devil's plan was {{instrumentality}}?
*** ...''holy shit'', just when I thought ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' had enough [[WildMassGuessing insane theories]].
*** Jokes aside, 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, [[OmnicidalManiac to taking as many souls down with him as he can.]]
* Irish folklore, in contrast with most traditions where a DealWithTheDevil 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 KarmicTrickster.

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* Phil, the Prince of [[strike: Darkness]] Insufficient Light from ''{{Dilbert}}''. He even has a giant spoon in place of the usual pitchfork, and claims to be from ''Heck''. May or may not be related to the PointyHairedBoss.
** Confirmed by the strip: They're at least half-brothers (and [[TheDevilIsALoser the Pointy Haired Boss was always their mom's favorite]]).
* From ''TheFarSide'':
--> '''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 TheWoobie.

[[AC:{{Radio}}]]
* The Devil in ''OldHarrysGame'' 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. [[SatanIsGood He is however portrayed sympathetically]], as he has to spend eternity in Hell just for rebelling against God once.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* The Ebon Dragon, from ''{{Exalted}}''. He's basically the [[{{Satan}} Devil-figure]] of the setting, the master of betrayal, lies, and deceit, and the only one of the [[EldritchAbomination Yozis]] who operates on [[CardCarryingVillain standard human morality]]...but see WordOfGod's explanation for exactly why ''his'' villainy is represented not by [[AboveGoodAndEvil alternative]] [[{{Ubermensch}} interpretations]] 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."

[[AC: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.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* In the SamAndMax 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 BigBad, who eventually fire him.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* The Devil from ''DinosaurComics'' spends all his time talking to T-Rex about video games and internet slang. And he drinks grape juice from concentrate.
* The webcomic ''[[http://www.inhislikeness.com 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 being mocked by God, toyed with by the angel couple Ezekiel and Arial, and made aware that he's LonelyAtTheTop. The closest thing he has to a friend is his LooneyFan Lil' Evil, a HarmlessVillain who's faith might as well be HoYay.
* In ''SluggyFreelance'' 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.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* Once faced with Tennyo and Generator in the story "Sit In" in the WhateleyUniverse, the demon lord (okay, brevet under-baron) Phesclangorenthal rapidly turns into this.
* Discussed by [[ MovieBob ]], he believes that when you take away all the stories and rumours, the devil is less [[LexLuthor Lex Luthor]], and more [[Transformers Starscream]].

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Red Guy With No Pants]] from ''CowAndChicken'' and ''IAmWeasel''.
** Notably, he's referred to as the devil only in the first show's pilot (in which his "evil plan" is to make Chicken smoke cigarettes).
* On ''SouthPark'', Satan may look scary, but he's a self-sabotaging abused lover of Saddam Hussein.
** Up until [[BerserkButton he had enough]] and killed Saddam.
*** Satan used to be scary, but then got into an abusive codependent relationship and [[VillainDecay hasn't recovered since]]. At times his demeanor borders on ''{{The Woobie}}.''
** Amusingly, [[GodKartingWithBeelzebub God actually called him out on this]]:
-->'''God:''' What the hell happened to you?
-->'''Satan:''' Huh?!
-->'''God:''' You got kicked out of here for being a headstrong rebel. [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech And now you're a whiny little bitch]].
* The Robot Devil from ''{{Futurama}}''. The guy is [[IdiotHero outsmarted by Fry]] and in one episode is seen in jail.
** [[ManChild He's also whiny,]] [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl screams like a little girl]] [[ImprobableWeaponUser when you hit him with a fiddle,]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and lives in New Jersey.]]
** And yet, he can still pull off one heck of a BatmanGambit. Good musician, too. (It should be noted that the fiddle he was hit with was made of gold and [[LampshadeHanging thus weighs hundreds of pounds]].)
* In ''GodTheDevilAndBob'', The Devil is shown more as an incompetent in-feminine weirdo then a power master of temptation, sometimes even is self destructive in his own evil schemes.
* Lucius on ''{{Jimmy Two-Shoes}}'' is largely a SmugSnake HarmlessVillain who is incapable of running things without [[OnlySaneEmployee Heloise]].
* Played with in ''LucyTheDaughterOfTheDevil'': Satan seems like a harmless yuppie right up until the point where he [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel tries to murder you in your dreams with burrowing flesh-worms.]]

[[AC:WebAnimation]]
* In ''[[WebOriginal/BonusStage Bonus Stage]]'', Satan rambles on about nothing and [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment makes people]] watch ''TimeSquad'', watch ''{{Shrek}} 2'' or eat his mom's spaghetti. [[spoiler:He also lets Joel, Phil and Elly out of hell.]]

----
<<|ReligionTropes|>>

[[quoteright:166:[[{{Sinfest}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sinfestloserdevil_1374.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:166:Keep telling yourself that.]]

->''The Devil is a loser, and he's my bitch!''
-->-- '''{{Lordi}}''', "Devil Is A Loser"

Some shows make [[{{Satan}} the Devil]] into an evil badass -- the kind of person who'd have no qualms about crushing someone mercilessly and [[EvilIsCool 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 worried about getting his Wood Elf character to level 70 or catching the latest episode of ''AvatarAndTheAirbendingFellowshipOfVampireSlayers'' than actually punishing the damned, or perhaps he's unattractive, 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 -- [[FairyTale medieval portrayals]] have him a thug, dangerous but also easy to fool and really only waiting for someone stupid enough to sin. 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. Trope named for a {{Lordi}} song.

For other non-threatening supernatural beings, see DontFearTheReaper.
----
'''Examples:'''

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''{{Bedazzled}}'' contains possibly the most literal example ever, in which Satan [[spoiler: loses a wager with God and is sent to a VillainousBreakdown]].
* In the ''{{Bedazzled}}'' remake the Devil [[HotAsHell (a beautiful woman)]] grants wishes to a man in exchange for his soul, but each wish [[JackassGenie results in a humiliating failure]]. It turns out that the Devil is actually harmless, since [[spoiler: God owns all people's souls; they can't be sold!]] She's just a practical joker.
* TheHauntedWorldOfElSuperbeasto cranks this one up to eleven.


[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Satan in the ''DivineComedy'' is a towering imbecile, trapped chest-deep in ice and forever beating his wings in a vain attempt to escape, which only [[SelfInflictedHell cools and hardens the ice trapping him]].
* The President of Hell in the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''[[strike:Faust]] Discworld/{{Eric}}'' definitely qualifies.
** Not necessarily. He ''did'' manage to inflict more suffering on the people in Hell than anyone before him.
* Another Loser Devil shows up in the Eoin Colfer novel ''The Wish List''.
* The devil takes the form of an emaciated, impoverished down-on-his-luck country gentleman in ''TheBrothersKaramazov''. 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 ''HeroicBSOD''.
** Although he claims to take this form to mess with Ivan's sense of self-importance.
* In C. S. Lewis' ''[[SpaceTrilogy 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 [[EvilIsPetty 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.
* Lewis also creates a different loser devil in ''TheScrewtapeLetters''. Screwtape is a grumpy old demon with NoSenseOfHumor, 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 Jane Yolen. 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 [[DevilButNoGod God's an absentee landlord]]. Morrow stated in interviews he was trying to [[DracoInLeatherPants avoid]] [[DesignatedVillain the various]] [[MisaimedFandom tropes]] so the Devil wouldn't be the most interesting character.
* ''LeftBehind'' has the devil as pretty incompetent.
** To the point where he becomes sympathetic solely because of how badly he gets beaten.
** There was one "fanfic" where it was revealed that the devil and antichrist we see in the books are strawmen set up by the ''real'' antichrist, who arrives at the end of the series, pretending to be Jesus. That actually made a lot of sense...
* Lucifer in ''The Book of Joby'' is fairly petty, and gets crapped on by birds.
* The underlying characterization of Satan in ''ParadiseLost''. 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 [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation see him as exactly the epic hero he presents himself to be]].
** Its sequel, ''ParadiseRegained,'' 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 ''[[JesusWasWayCool Jesus]]'' and was obviously doomed to failure, unlike with Adam and Eve.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* In ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Caleb, right-hand man to the First Evil, refers to Satan as a "little man" (at least, compared to his boss).
* One ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch features a musician making a DealWithTheDevil only to discover that Satan is a phenomenally crappy songwriter.
** Another one features Patrick Stewart as an initially [[LargeHam impressive]] Satan who then chokes on a grape and finds that he can't command any respect from his lackeys anymore.
* In an episode of ''NorthernExposure'', 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.
* There's a ''{{The Whitest Kids U Know}}'' routine in which the Devil is depicted as an effeminate Southern guy who spends [[OverlyLongGag two minutes of screentime]] going on what Wikipedia calls "unprecedented rants against people who make assumptions of what the Devil is".
-->''"Would you please stop that?"''
* On an episode of ''XPlay'' about the time a ''WorldOfWarcraft'' 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 appartment, having to deal repeatedly with annoyingly persistent Jehovah's witnesses. [[spoiler:They manage to convert him in the end!!]]
* In the MysteryScienceTheater3000 episode "SantaClaus" Mike Nelson sings "The Devil is a Wiener" to the tune of the soundtrack.

[[AC:{{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.
** A squeal balled: "The Devil Comes Back To Georgia" also made by the Charlie Daniels band [[HereWeGoAgain 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 Devils ass...again.
** One episode of ''{{Futurama}}'' references this song. Robot Devil challenges Fry and Leela to a fiddle contest for Bender's soul. When Robot Devil shows what a virtuoso fiddler he is, Leela just picks up the golden fiddle and beats the crap out of him, making him [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl scream like a little girl]]. In a later episode he's the one who schemes desperately to end a deal he's struck, rather than his "victim" Fry.
*** Wouldn't a solid gold fiddle weigh hundreds of pounds and sound really crappy?
**** That's why you use it in the drum solo.
** This song and the subjective nature of the competition is parodied in this [[http://jjrowland.com/wigu/20040908.html Wigu strip]]. Topato challenges Satan to a music duel for a chance to leave hell. Satan has God judge the competition ("He's impartial as they come"), with the rules being that whoever God feels is better wins. Satan plays a normal song, but all Topato does is play a single loud note. God rules in favor of Topato, but Satan then protests that they should have to play the same instrument and style. After Topato is given an awkwardly heavy golden fiddle to play with, he retaliates by beating the crap out of Satan with it. God just responds with "I am going to allow this". I guess God isn't too neutral after all.
*** ** Sounds more like a Full Episode homage to/rip off of ''Futurama'', down to the line "I am going to allow this."
** One can found a hilarious subversion of the "Devil's Challenge" in [[http://terminaitor.deviantart.com/art/OotF-Largo-s-Jumper-Tales-117427222?q=1&qo=1 this comic]]. The Devil should've realized the flaws in his loopholes.
** The Mono Puff song "The Devil Went Down to Newport" reveals that Satan is no good at surfing, either, because of his hooves.
** In ''TenaciousD in The Pick of Destiny'', Cage and Jables must use ThePowerOfRock to beat the devil in a "rock-off". In this case, the devil actually ''wins'' the competition -- but, in so doing, he loses one of his horns, which Jables is able to use to cast a spell to bind him in Hell. It seems that [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption the Devil can't win for losing.]]
*** This plot in itself seems to reference their song ''Tribute'', in which the two meet a demon highly implied to be Satan on the road. He challenges them to sing the greatest song ever written or he'll eat their souls. When they burst forth with the greatest song in the world he's stunned and asks if they are angels. To which they reply "Nay, we are but men! Rock!" It's too bad they forgot how the song goes.
** In ''{{Guitar Hero}} 3'', the finale is a heavy metal cover of this song, which is so intensely difficult that it's become the ScrappyLevel. This actually angered the Charlie Daniels Band, because it undermined the point of the song.
*** I thought it was that Charlie Daniels himself was angered by it, because the battle took place in hell, complete with demonic stage girls.
**** There's a difference between Georgia and Hell?
** Robot Chicken naturally parodies this, with Spawn challenging Satan to a fiddling contest. Spawn manages a grand playing of the song, when all Satan can do is scratch out a painful note. Because the audience are his minions, however, he still gets called the winner.
* Then of course there is the TropeNamer itself, which is {{Lordi}}'s song ''The Devil Is A Loser'', as quoted above. The song ridicules someone for making a DealWithTheDevil... 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.


[[AC:{{Mythology}}]]
* In UsefulNotes/UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} (as opposed to the religion of Islam) the devil (called Iblis, who was never an angel) is not only stupid but ugly as well which makes a [[{{Fanon}} folk theory]][=/=]AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that ''he and God were once lovers'' kind of odd. Then again, LoveMakesYouCrazy, [[LoveMakesYouDumb Dumb]], and [[LoveMakesYouEvil Evil]].
** [[BellisariosMaxim It's folklore, don't think too hard about it.]]
** 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 UsefulNotes/{{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 [[EarnYourHappyEnding deserving it for trying act ethically over the course of their lifetime]] and all the glory going to God because God enabled it and [[TheChessmaster 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 is, of course, [[TooDumbToLive helps to enable the entire thing]].
** Does that mean the Devil's plan was {{instrumentality}}?
*** ...''holy shit'', just when I thought ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' had enough [[WildMassGuessing insane theories]].
*** Jokes aside, 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, [[OmnicidalManiac to taking as many souls down with him as he can.]]
* Irish folklore, in contrast with most traditions where a DealWithTheDevil 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 KarmicTrickster.

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* Phil, the Prince of [[strike: Darkness]] Insufficient Light from ''{{Dilbert}}''. He even has a giant spoon in place of the usual pitchfork, and claims to be from ''Heck''. May or may not be related to the PointyHairedBoss.
** Confirmed by the strip: They're at least half-brothers (and [[TheDevilIsALoser the Pointy Haired Boss was always their mom's favorite]]).
* From ''TheFarSide'':
--> '''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 TheWoobie.

[[AC:{{Radio}}]]
* The Devil in ''OldHarrysGame'' 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. [[SatanIsGood He is however portrayed sympathetically]], as he has to spend eternity in Hell just for rebelling against God once.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* The Ebon Dragon, from ''{{Exalted}}''. He's basically the [[{{Satan}} Devil-figure]] of the setting, the master of betrayal, lies, and deceit, and the only one of the [[EldritchAbomination Yozis]] who operates on [[CardCarryingVillain standard human morality]]...but see WordOfGod's explanation for exactly why ''his'' villainy is represented not by [[AboveGoodAndEvil alternative]] [[{{Ubermensch}} interpretations]] 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."

[[AC: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.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* In the SamAndMax 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 BigBad, who eventually fire him.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* The Devil from ''DinosaurComics'' spends all his time talking to T-Rex about video games and internet slang. And he drinks grape juice from concentrate.
* The webcomic ''[[http://www.inhislikeness.com 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 being mocked by God, toyed with by the angel couple Ezekiel and Arial, and made aware that he's LonelyAtTheTop. The closest thing he has to a friend is his LooneyFan Lil' Evil, a HarmlessVillain who's faith might as well be HoYay.
* In ''SluggyFreelance'' 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.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* Once faced with Tennyo and Generator in the story "Sit In" in the WhateleyUniverse, the demon lord (okay, brevet under-baron) Phesclangorenthal rapidly turns into this.
* Discussed by [[ MovieBob ]], he believes that when you take away all the stories and rumours, the devil is less [[LexLuthor Lex Luthor]], and more [[Transformers Starscream]].

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Red Guy With No Pants]] from ''CowAndChicken'' and ''IAmWeasel''.
** Notably, he's referred to as the devil only in the first show's pilot (in which his "evil plan" is to make Chicken smoke cigarettes).
* On ''SouthPark'', Satan may look scary, but he's a self-sabotaging abused lover of Saddam Hussein.
** Up until [[BerserkButton he had enough]] and killed Saddam.
*** Satan used to be scary, but then got into an abusive codependent relationship and [[VillainDecay hasn't recovered since]]. At times his demeanor borders on ''{{The Woobie}}.''
** Amusingly, [[GodKartingWithBeelzebub God actually called him out on this]]:
-->'''God:''' What the hell happened to you?
-->'''Satan:''' Huh?!
-->'''God:''' You got kicked out of here for being a headstrong rebel. [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech And now you're a whiny little bitch]].
* The Robot Devil from ''{{Futurama}}''. The guy is [[IdiotHero outsmarted by Fry]] and in one episode is seen in jail.
** [[ManChild He's also whiny,]] [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl screams like a little girl]] [[ImprobableWeaponUser when you hit him with a fiddle,]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and lives in New Jersey.]]
** And yet, he can still pull off one heck of a BatmanGambit. Good musician, too. (It should be noted that the fiddle he was hit with was made of gold and [[LampshadeHanging thus weighs hundreds of pounds]].)
* In ''GodTheDevilAndBob'', The Devil is shown more as an incompetent in-feminine weirdo then a power master of temptation, sometimes even is self destructive in his own evil schemes.
* Lucius on ''{{Jimmy Two-Shoes}}'' is largely a SmugSnake HarmlessVillain who is incapable of running things without [[OnlySaneEmployee Heloise]].
* Played with in ''LucyTheDaughterOfTheDevil'': Satan seems like a harmless yuppie right up until the point where he [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel tries to murder you in your dreams with burrowing flesh-worms.]]

[[AC:WebAnimation]]
* In ''[[WebOriginal/BonusStage Bonus Stage]]'', Satan rambles on about nothing and [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment makes people]] watch ''TimeSquad'', watch ''{{Shrek}} 2'' or eat his mom's spaghetti. [[spoiler:He also lets Joel, Phil and Elly out of hell.]]

----
<<|ReligionTropes|>>

* Discussed by [[MovieBob]], he believes that when you take away all the stories and rumours, the devil is less [[LexLuthor Lex Luthor]], and more ''{{Transformers Starscream}}''.

* Discussed by [[Moviebob]], he believes that when you take away all the stories and rumours, the devil is less [[LexLuthor Lex Luthor]], and more [[Transformers Starscream]].

[[quoteright:166:[[{{Sinfest}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sinfestloserdevil_1374.png]]]] [[caption-width-right:166:Keep telling yourself that.]] ->''The Devil is a loser, and he's my bitch!'' -->-- '''{{Lordi}}''', "Devil Is A Loser" Some shows make [[{{Satan}} the Devil]] into an evil badass -- the kind of person who'd have no qualms about crushing someone mercilessly and [[EvilIsCool 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 worried about getting his Wood Elf character to level 70 or catching the latest episode of ''AvatarAndTheAirbendingFellowshipOfVampireSlayers'' than actually punishing the damned, or perhaps he's unattractive, 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 -- [[FairyTale medieval portrayals]] have him a thug, dangerous but also easy to fool and really only waiting for someone stupid enough to sin. 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. Trope named for a {{Lordi}} song. For other non-threatening supernatural beings, see DontFearTheReaper. ---- '''Examples:''' [[AC:{{Film}}]] * ''{{Bedazzled}}'' contains possibly the most literal example ever, in which Satan [[spoiler: loses a wager with God and is sent to a VillainousBreakdown]]. * In the ''{{Bedazzled}}'' remake the Devil [[HotAsHell (a beautiful woman)]] grants wishes to a man in exchange for his soul, but each wish [[JackassGenie results in a humiliating failure]]. It turns out that the Devil is actually harmless, since [[spoiler: God owns all people's souls; they can't be sold!]] She's just a practical joker. * TheHauntedWorldOfElSuperbeasto cranks this one up to eleven. [[AC:{{Literature}}]] * Satan in the ''DivineComedy'' is a towering imbecile, trapped chest-deep in ice and forever beating his wings in a vain attempt to escape, which only [[SelfInflictedHell cools and hardens the ice trapping him]]. * The President of Hell in the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''[[strike:Faust]] Discworld/{{Eric}}'' definitely qualifies. ** Not necessarily. He ''did'' manage to inflict more suffering on the people in Hell than anyone before him. * Another Loser Devil shows up in the Eoin Colfer novel ''The Wish List''. * The devil takes the form of an emaciated, impoverished down-on-his-luck country gentleman in ''TheBrothersKaramazov''. 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 ''HeroicBSOD''. ** Although he claims to take this form to mess with Ivan's sense of self-importance. * In C. S. Lewis' ''[[SpaceTrilogy 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 [[EvilIsPetty 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. * Lewis also creates a different loser devil in ''TheScrewtapeLetters''. Screwtape is a grumpy old demon with NoSenseOfHumor, 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 Jane Yolen. 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 [[DevilButNoGod God's an absentee landlord]]. Morrow stated in interviews he was trying to [[DracoInLeatherPants avoid]] [[DesignatedVillain the various]] [[MisaimedFandom tropes]] so the Devil wouldn't be the most interesting character. * ''LeftBehind'' has the devil as pretty incompetent. ** To the point where he becomes sympathetic solely because of how badly he gets beaten. ** There was one "fanfic" where it was revealed that the devil and antichrist we see in the books are strawmen set up by the ''real'' antichrist, who arrives at the end of the series, pretending to be Jesus. That actually made a lot of sense... * Lucifer in ''The Book of Joby'' is fairly petty, and gets crapped on by birds. * The underlying characterization of Satan in ''ParadiseLost''. 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 [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation see him as exactly the epic hero he presents himself to be]]. ** Its sequel, ''ParadiseRegained,'' 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 ''[[JesusWasWayCool Jesus]]'' and was obviously doomed to failure, unlike with Adam and Eve. [[AC:LiveActionTV]] * In ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Caleb, right-hand man to the First Evil, refers to Satan as a "little man" (at least, compared to his boss). * One ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch features a musician making a DealWithTheDevil only to discover that Satan is a phenomenally crappy songwriter. ** Another one features Patrick Stewart as an initially [[LargeHam impressive]] Satan who then chokes on a grape and finds that he can't command any respect from his lackeys anymore. * In an episode of ''NorthernExposure'', 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. * There's a ''{{The Whitest Kids U Know}}'' routine in which the Devil is depicted as an effeminate Southern guy who spends [[OverlyLongGag two minutes of screentime]] going on what Wikipedia calls "unprecedented rants against people who make assumptions of what the Devil is". -->''"Would you please stop that?"'' * On an episode of ''XPlay'' about the time a ''WorldOfWarcraft'' 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 appartment, having to deal repeatedly with annoyingly persistent Jehovah's witnesses. [[spoiler:They manage to convert him in the end!!]] * In the MysteryScienceTheater3000 episode "SantaClaus" Mike Nelson sings "The Devil is a Wiener" to the tune of the soundtrack. [[AC:{{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. ** A squeal balled: "The Devil Comes Back To Georgia" also made by the Charlie Daniels band [[HereWeGoAgain 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 Devils ass...again. ** One episode of ''{{Futurama}}'' references this song. Robot Devil challenges Fry and Leela to a fiddle contest for Bender's soul. When Robot Devil shows what a virtuoso fiddler he is, Leela just picks up the golden fiddle and beats the crap out of him, making him [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl scream like a little girl]]. In a later episode he's the one who schemes desperately to end a deal he's struck, rather than his "victim" Fry. *** Wouldn't a solid gold fiddle weigh hundreds of pounds and sound really crappy? **** That's why you use it in the drum solo. ** This song and the subjective nature of the competition is parodied in this [[http://jjrowland.com/wigu/20040908.html Wigu strip]]. Topato challenges Satan to a music duel for a chance to leave hell. Satan has God judge the competition ("He's impartial as they come"), with the rules being that whoever God feels is better wins. Satan plays a normal song, but all Topato does is play a single loud note. God rules in favor of Topato, but Satan then protests that they should have to play the same instrument and style. After Topato is given an awkwardly heavy golden fiddle to play with, he retaliates by beating the crap out of Satan with it. God just responds with "I am going to allow this". I guess God isn't too neutral after all. *** ** Sounds more like a Full Episode homage to/rip off of ''Futurama'', down to the line "I am going to allow this." ** One can found a hilarious subversion of the "Devil's Challenge" in [[http://terminaitor.deviantart.com/art/OotF-Largo-s-Jumper-Tales-117427222?q=1&qo=1 this comic]]. The Devil should've realized the flaws in his loopholes. ** The Mono Puff song "The Devil Went Down to Newport" reveals that Satan is no good at surfing, either, because of his hooves. ** In ''TenaciousD in The Pick of Destiny'', Cage and Jables must use ThePowerOfRock to beat the devil in a "rock-off". In this case, the devil actually ''wins'' the competition -- but, in so doing, he loses one of his horns, which Jables is able to use to cast a spell to bind him in Hell. It seems that [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption the Devil can't win for losing.]] *** This plot in itself seems to reference their song ''Tribute'', in which the two meet a demon highly implied to be Satan on the road. He challenges them to sing the greatest song ever written or he'll eat their souls. When they burst forth with the greatest song in the world he's stunned and asks if they are angels. To which they reply "Nay, we are but men! Rock!" It's too bad they forgot how the song goes. ** In ''{{Guitar Hero}} 3'', the finale is a heavy metal cover of this song, which is so intensely difficult that it's become the ScrappyLevel. This actually angered the Charlie Daniels Band, because it undermined the point of the song. *** I thought it was that Charlie Daniels himself was angered by it, because the battle took place in hell, complete with demonic stage girls. **** There's a difference between Georgia and Hell? ** Robot Chicken naturally parodies this, with Spawn challenging Satan to a fiddling contest. Spawn manages a grand playing of the song, when all Satan can do is scratch out a painful note. Because the audience are his minions, however, he still gets called the winner. * Then of course there is the TropeNamer itself, which is {{Lordi}}'s song ''The Devil Is A Loser'', as quoted above. The song ridicules someone for making a DealWithTheDevil... 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. [[AC:{{Mythology}}]] * In UsefulNotes/UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} (as opposed to the religion of Islam) the devil (called Iblis, who was never an angel) is not only stupid but ugly as well which makes a [[{{Fanon}} folk theory]][=/=]AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that ''he and God were once lovers'' kind of odd. Then again, LoveMakesYouCrazy, [[LoveMakesYouDumb Dumb]], and [[LoveMakesYouEvil Evil]]. ** [[BellisariosMaxim It's folklore, don't think too hard about it.]] ** 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 UsefulNotes/{{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 [[EarnYourHappyEnding deserving it for trying act ethically over the course of their lifetime]] and all the glory going to God because God enabled it and [[TheChessmaster 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 is, of course, [[TooDumbToLive helps to enable the entire thing]]. ** Does that mean the Devil's plan was {{instrumentality}}? *** ...''holy shit'', just when I thought ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' had enough [[WildMassGuessing insane theories]]. *** Jokes aside, 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, [[OmnicidalManiac to taking as many souls down with him as he can.]] * Irish folklore, in contrast with most traditions where a DealWithTheDevil 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 KarmicTrickster. [[AC:NewspaperComics]] * Phil, the Prince of [[strike: Darkness]] Insufficient Light from ''{{Dilbert}}''. He even has a giant spoon in place of the usual pitchfork, and claims to be from ''Heck''. May or may not be related to the PointyHairedBoss. ** Confirmed by the strip: They're at least half-brothers (and [[TheDevilIsALoser the Pointy Haired Boss was always their mom's favorite]]). * From ''TheFarSide'': --> '''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 TheWoobie. [[AC:{{Radio}}]] * The Devil in ''OldHarrysGame'' 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. [[SatanIsGood He is however portrayed sympathetically]], as he has to spend eternity in Hell just for rebelling against God once. [[AC:TabletopGames]] * The Ebon Dragon, from ''{{Exalted}}''. He's basically the [[{{Satan}} Devil-figure]] of the setting, the master of betrayal, lies, and deceit, and the only one of the [[EldritchAbomination Yozis]] who operates on [[CardCarryingVillain standard human morality]]...but see WordOfGod's explanation for exactly why ''his'' villainy is represented not by [[AboveGoodAndEvil alternative]] [[{{Ubermensch}} interpretations]] 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." [[AC: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. [[AC:VideoGames]] * In the SamAndMax 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 BigBad, who eventually fire him. [[AC:{{Webcomics}}]] * The Devil from ''DinosaurComics'' spends all his time talking to T-Rex about video games and internet slang. And he drinks grape juice from concentrate. * The webcomic ''[[http://www.inhislikeness.com 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 being mocked by God, toyed with by the angel couple Ezekiel and Arial, and made aware that he's LonelyAtTheTop. The closest thing he has to a friend is his LooneyFan Lil' Evil, a HarmlessVillain who's faith might as well be HoYay. * In ''SluggyFreelance'' 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. [[AC:WebOriginal]] * Once faced with Tennyo and Generator in the story "Sit In" in the WhateleyUniverse, the demon lord (okay, brevet under-baron) Phesclangorenthal rapidly turns into this.
* MovieBob Discusses this in his Devil Review, at the end of the day,, strip away all the rmours and illusions of grandeur and Satan is just a mythical [[Transformers Starscream]].
[[AC:WesternAnimation]] * [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Red Guy With No Pants]] from ''CowAndChicken'' and ''IAmWeasel''. ** Notably, he's referred to as the devil only in the first show's pilot (in which his "evil plan" is to make Chicken smoke cigarettes). * On ''SouthPark'', Satan may look scary, but he's a self-sabotaging abused lover of Saddam Hussein. ** Up until [[BerserkButton he had enough]] and killed Saddam. *** Satan used to be scary, but then got into an abusive codependent relationship and [[VillainDecay hasn't recovered since]]. At times his demeanor borders on ''{{The Woobie}}.'' ** Amusingly, [[GodKartingWithBeelzebub God actually called him out on this]]: -->'''God:''' What the hell happened to you? -->'''Satan:''' Huh?! -->'''God:''' You got kicked out of here for being a headstrong rebel. [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech And now you're a whiny little bitch]]. * The Robot Devil from ''{{Futurama}}''. The guy is [[IdiotHero outsmarted by Fry]] and in one episode is seen in jail. ** [[ManChild He's also whiny,]] [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl screams like a little girl]] [[ImprobableWeaponUser when you hit him with a fiddle,]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and lives in New Jersey.]] ** And yet, he can still pull off one heck of a BatmanGambit. Good musician, too. (It should be noted that the fiddle he was hit with was made of gold and [[LampshadeHanging thus weighs hundreds of pounds]].) * In ''GodTheDevilAndBob'', The Devil is shown more as an incompetent in-feminine weirdo then a power master of temptation, sometimes even is self destructive in his own evil schemes. * Lucius on ''{{Jimmy Two-Shoes}}'' is largely a SmugSnake HarmlessVillain who is incapable of running things without [[OnlySaneEmployee Heloise]]. * Played with in ''LucyTheDaughterOfTheDevil'': Satan seems like a harmless yuppie right up until the point where he [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel tries to murder you in your dreams with burrowing flesh-worms.]] [[AC:WebAnimation]] * In ''[[WebOriginal/BonusStage Bonus Stage]]'', Satan rambles on about nothing and [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment makes people]] watch ''TimeSquad'', watch ''{{Shrek}} 2'' or eat his mom's spaghetti. [[spoiler:He also lets Joel, Phil and Elly out of hell.]] ---- <<|ReligionTropes|>>

[[quoteright:166:[[{{Sinfest}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sinfestloserdevil_1374.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:166:Keep telling yourself that.]]

->''The Devil is a loser, and he's my bitch!''
-->-- '''{{Lordi}}''', "Devil Is A Loser"

Some shows make [[{{Satan}} the Devil]] into an evil badass -- the kind of person who'd have no qualms about crushing someone mercilessly and [[EvilIsCool 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 worried about getting his Wood Elf character to level 70 or catching the latest episode of ''AvatarAndTheAirbendingFellowshipOfVampireSlayers'' than actually punishing the damned, or perhaps he's unattractive, 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 -- [[FairyTale medieval portrayals]] have him a thug, dangerous but also easy to fool and really only waiting for someone stupid enough to sin. 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. Trope named for a {{Lordi}} song.

For other non-threatening supernatural beings, see DontFearTheReaper.
----
'''Examples:'''

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* ''{{Bedazzled}}'' contains possibly the most literal example ever, in which Satan [[spoiler: loses a wager with God and is sent to a VillainousBreakdown]].
* In the ''{{Bedazzled}}'' remake the Devil [[HotAsHell (a beautiful woman)]] grants wishes to a man in exchange for his soul, but each wish [[JackassGenie results in a humiliating failure]]. It turns out that the Devil is actually harmless, since [[spoiler: God owns all people's souls; they can't be sold!]] She's just a practical joker.
* TheHauntedWorldOfElSuperbeasto cranks this one up to eleven.


[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Satan in the ''DivineComedy'' is a towering imbecile, trapped chest-deep in ice and forever beating his wings in a vain attempt to escape, which only [[SelfInflictedHell cools and hardens the ice trapping him]].
* The President of Hell in the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''[[strike:Faust]] Discworld/{{Eric}}'' definitely qualifies.
** Not necessarily. He ''did'' manage to inflict more suffering on the people in Hell than anyone before him.
* Another Loser Devil shows up in the Eoin Colfer novel ''The Wish List''.
* The devil takes the form of an emaciated, impoverished down-on-his-luck country gentleman in ''TheBrothersKaramazov''. 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 ''HeroicBSOD''.
** Although he claims to take this form to mess with Ivan's sense of self-importance.
* In C. S. Lewis' ''[[SpaceTrilogy 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 [[EvilIsPetty 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.
* Lewis also creates a different loser devil in ''TheScrewtapeLetters''. Screwtape is a grumpy old demon with NoSenseOfHumor, 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 Jane Yolen. 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 [[DevilButNoGod God's an absentee landlord]]. Morrow stated in interviews he was trying to [[DracoInLeatherPants avoid]] [[DesignatedVillain the various]] [[MisaimedFandom tropes]] so the Devil wouldn't be the most interesting character.
* ''LeftBehind'' has the devil as pretty incompetent.
** To the point where he becomes sympathetic solely because of how badly he gets beaten.
** There was one "fanfic" where it was revealed that the devil and antichrist we see in the books are strawmen set up by the ''real'' antichrist, who arrives at the end of the series, pretending to be Jesus. That actually made a lot of sense...
* Lucifer in ''The Book of Joby'' is fairly petty, and gets crapped on by birds.
* The underlying characterization of Satan in ''ParadiseLost''. 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 [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation see him as exactly the epic hero he presents himself to be]].
** Its sequel, ''ParadiseRegained,'' 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 ''[[JesusWasWayCool Jesus]]'' and was obviously doomed to failure, unlike with Adam and Eve.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* In ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Caleb, right-hand man to the First Evil, refers to Satan as a "little man" (at least, compared to his boss).
* One ''SaturdayNightLive'' sketch features a musician making a DealWithTheDevil only to discover that Satan is a phenomenally crappy songwriter.
** Another one features Patrick Stewart as an initially [[LargeHam impressive]] Satan who then chokes on a grape and finds that he can't command any respect from his lackeys anymore.
* In an episode of ''NorthernExposure'', 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.
* There's a ''{{The Whitest Kids U Know}}'' routine in which the Devil is depicted as an effeminate Southern guy who spends [[OverlyLongGag two minutes of screentime]] going on what Wikipedia calls "unprecedented rants against people who make assumptions of what the Devil is".
-->''"Would you please stop that?"''
* On an episode of ''XPlay'' about the time a ''WorldOfWarcraft'' 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 appartment, having to deal repeatedly with annoyingly persistent Jehovah's witnesses. [[spoiler:They manage to convert him in the end!!]]
* In the MysteryScienceTheater3000 episode "SantaClaus" Mike Nelson sings "The Devil is a Wiener" to the tune of the soundtrack.

[[AC:{{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.
** A squeal balled: "The Devil Comes Back To Georgia" also made by the Charlie Daniels band [[HereWeGoAgain 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 Devils ass...again.
** One episode of ''{{Futurama}}'' references this song. Robot Devil challenges Fry and Leela to a fiddle contest for Bender's soul. When Robot Devil shows what a virtuoso fiddler he is, Leela just picks up the golden fiddle and beats the crap out of him, making him [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl scream like a little girl]]. In a later episode he's the one who schemes desperately to end a deal he's struck, rather than his "victim" Fry.
*** Wouldn't a solid gold fiddle weigh hundreds of pounds and sound really crappy?
**** That's why you use it in the drum solo.
** This song and the subjective nature of the competition is parodied in this [[http://jjrowland.com/wigu/20040908.html Wigu strip]]. Topato challenges Satan to a music duel for a chance to leave hell. Satan has God judge the competition ("He's impartial as they come"), with the rules being that whoever God feels is better wins. Satan plays a normal song, but all Topato does is play a single loud note. God rules in favor of Topato, but Satan then protests that they should have to play the same instrument and style. After Topato is given an awkwardly heavy golden fiddle to play with, he retaliates by beating the crap out of Satan with it. God just responds with "I am going to allow this". I guess God isn't too neutral after all.
*** ** Sounds more like a Full Episode homage to/rip off of ''Futurama'', down to the line "I am going to allow this."
** One can found a hilarious subversion of the "Devil's Challenge" in [[http://terminaitor.deviantart.com/art/OotF-Largo-s-Jumper-Tales-117427222?q=1&qo=1 this comic]]. The Devil should've realized the flaws in his loopholes.
** The Mono Puff song "The Devil Went Down to Newport" reveals that Satan is no good at surfing, either, because of his hooves.
** In ''TenaciousD in The Pick of Destiny'', Cage and Jables must use ThePowerOfRock to beat the devil in a "rock-off". In this case, the devil actually ''wins'' the competition -- but, in so doing, he loses one of his horns, which Jables is able to use to cast a spell to bind him in Hell. It seems that [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption the Devil can't win for losing.]]
*** This plot in itself seems to reference their song ''Tribute'', in which the two meet a demon highly implied to be Satan on the road. He challenges them to sing the greatest song ever written or he'll eat their souls. When they burst forth with the greatest song in the world he's stunned and asks if they are angels. To which they reply "Nay, we are but men! Rock!" It's too bad they forgot how the song goes.
** In ''{{Guitar Hero}} 3'', the finale is a heavy metal cover of this song, which is so intensely difficult that it's become the ScrappyLevel. This actually angered the Charlie Daniels Band, because it undermined the point of the song.
*** I thought it was that Charlie Daniels himself was angered by it, because the battle took place in hell, complete with demonic stage girls.
**** There's a difference between Georgia and Hell?
** Robot Chicken naturally parodies this, with Spawn challenging Satan to a fiddling contest. Spawn manages a grand playing of the song, when all Satan can do is scratch out a painful note. Because the audience are his minions, however, he still gets called the winner.
* Then of course there is the TropeNamer itself, which is {{Lordi}}'s song ''The Devil Is A Loser'', as quoted above. The song ridicules someone for making a DealWithTheDevil... 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.


[[AC:{{Mythology}}]]
* In UsefulNotes/UsefulNotes/{{Islam}} (as opposed to the religion of Islam) the devil (called Iblis, who was never an angel) is not only stupid but ugly as well which makes a [[{{Fanon}} folk theory]][=/=]AlternativeCharacterInterpretation that ''he and God were once lovers'' kind of odd. Then again, LoveMakesYouCrazy, [[LoveMakesYouDumb Dumb]], and [[LoveMakesYouEvil Evil]].
** [[BellisariosMaxim It's folklore, don't think too hard about it.]]
** 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 UsefulNotes/{{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 [[EarnYourHappyEnding deserving it for trying act ethically over the course of their lifetime]] and all the glory going to God because God enabled it and [[TheChessmaster 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 is, of course, [[TooDumbToLive helps to enable the entire thing]].
** Does that mean the Devil's plan was {{instrumentality}}?
*** ...''holy shit'', just when I thought ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' had enough [[WildMassGuessing insane theories]].
*** Jokes aside, 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, [[OmnicidalManiac to taking as many souls down with him as he can.]]
* Irish folklore, in contrast with most traditions where a DealWithTheDevil 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 KarmicTrickster.

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* Phil, the Prince of [[strike: Darkness]] Insufficient Light from ''{{Dilbert}}''. He even has a giant spoon in place of the usual pitchfork, and claims to be from ''Heck''. May or may not be related to the PointyHairedBoss.
** Confirmed by the strip: They're at least half-brothers (and [[TheDevilIsALoser the Pointy Haired Boss was always their mom's favorite]]).
* From ''TheFarSide'':
--> '''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 TheWoobie.

[[AC:{{Radio}}]]
* The Devil in ''OldHarrysGame'' 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. [[SatanIsGood He is however portrayed sympathetically]], as he has to spend eternity in Hell just for rebelling against God once.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* The Ebon Dragon, from ''{{Exalted}}''. He's basically the [[{{Satan}} Devil-figure]] of the setting, the master of betrayal, lies, and deceit, and the only one of the [[EldritchAbomination Yozis]] who operates on [[CardCarryingVillain standard human morality]]...but see WordOfGod's explanation for exactly why ''his'' villainy is represented not by [[AboveGoodAndEvil alternative]] [[{{Ubermensch}} interpretations]] 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."

[[AC: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.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* In the SamAndMax 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 BigBad, who eventually fire him.

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* The Devil from ''DinosaurComics'' spends all his time talking to T-Rex about video games and internet slang. And he drinks grape juice from concentrate.
* The webcomic ''[[http://www.inhislikeness.com 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 being mocked by God, toyed with by the angel couple Ezekiel and Arial, and made aware that he's LonelyAtTheTop. The closest thing he has to a friend is his LooneyFan Lil' Evil, a HarmlessVillain who's faith might as well be HoYay.
* In ''SluggyFreelance'' 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.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* Once faced with Tennyo and Generator in the story "Sit In" in the WhateleyUniverse, the demon lord (okay, brevet under-baron) Phesclangorenthal rapidly turns into this.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Red Guy With No Pants]] from ''CowAndChicken'' and ''IAmWeasel''.
** Notably, he's referred to as the devil only in the first show's pilot (in which his "evil plan" is to make Chicken smoke cigarettes).
* On ''SouthPark'', Satan may look scary, but he's a self-sabotaging abused lover of Saddam Hussein.
** Up until [[BerserkButton he had enough]] and killed Saddam.
*** Satan used to be scary, but then got into an abusive codependent relationship and [[VillainDecay hasn't recovered since]]. At times his demeanor borders on ''{{The Woobie}}.''
** Amusingly, [[GodKartingWithBeelzebub God actually called him out on this]]:
-->'''God:''' What the hell happened to you?
-->'''Satan:''' Huh?!
-->'''God:''' You got kicked out of here for being a headstrong rebel. [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech And now you're a whiny little bitch]].
* The Robot Devil from ''{{Futurama}}''. The guy is [[IdiotHero outsmarted by Fry]] and in one episode is seen in jail.
** [[ManChild He's also whiny,]] [[ScreamsLikeALittleGirl screams like a little girl]] [[ImprobableWeaponUser when you hit him with a fiddle,]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and lives in New Jersey.]]
** And yet, he can still pull off one heck of a BatmanGambit. Good musician, too. (It should be noted that the fiddle he was hit with was made of gold and [[LampshadeHanging thus weighs hundreds of pounds]].)
* In ''GodTheDevilAndBob'', The Devil is shown more as an incompetent in-feminine weirdo then a power master of temptation, sometimes even is self destructive in his own evil schemes.
* Lucius on ''{{Jimmy Two-Shoes}}'' is largely a SmugSnake HarmlessVillain who is incapable of running things without [[OnlySaneEmployee Heloise]].
* Played with in ''LucyTheDaughterOfTheDevil'': Satan seems like a harmless yuppie right up until the point where he [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel tries to murder you in your dreams with burrowing flesh-worms.]]

[[AC:WebAnimation]]
* In ''[[WebOriginal/BonusStage Bonus Stage]]'', Satan rambles on about nothing and [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment makes people]] watch ''TimeSquad'', watch ''{{Shrek}} 2'' or eat his mom's spaghetti. [[spoiler:He also lets Joel, Phil and Elly out of hell.]]

----
<<|ReligionTropes|>>

* In ''[[Series/BonusStage Bonus Stage]]'', Satan rambles on about nothing and [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment makes people]] watch ''TimeSquad'', watch ''{{Shrek}} 2'' or eat his mom's spaghetti. [[spoiler:He also lets Joel, Phil and Elly out of hell.]]

*** Jokes aside, 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.

->"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."

Some shows make the Devil into an evil badass -- the kind of person who'd have no qualms about crushing someone mercilessly and [[EvilIsCool looking damn cool]] while doing it.

And some make him into a petty, somewhat nerdy and overall pretty normal (if unrelentingly evil). He may be worried about getting his Wood Elf character to level 70 or catching the latest episode of ''AvatarAndTheAirbendingFellowshipOfVampireSlayers'' than actually punishing the damned, or perhaps he's unnacttractive, unpopular and lives in his mother's basement. Either way, any {{Badass}} who ends up down there is in for a bitter shock.

* In C. S. Lewis' ''[[SpaceTrilogy 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.

* Satan in the ''DivineComedy'' is a towering imbecile, trapped chest-deep in ice and forever beating his wings in a vain attempt to escape, which only cools and hardens the ice trapping him.

-->-- '''Lordi''', "Devil Is A Loser"

This is the other side of the infernal coin. Satan as a stylish, seductive badass is actually pretty recent -- [[FairyTale medieval portrayals]] have him a thug, dangerous but also easy to fool and really only waiting for someone stupid enough to sin. 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. Trope named for a Lordi song.

* Then of course there is the TropeNamer itself, which is Lordi's song ''The Devil Is A Loser'' as quoted above, The song ridicules someone for making a DealWithTheDevil... because they were stupid enough to make a deal with someone that pathetic.

This is the other side of the infernal coin. Satan as a stylish, seductive badass is actually pretty recent -- [[FairyTale medieval portrayals]] have him a thug, dangerous but also easy to fool and really only waiting for someone stupid enough to sin. 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. Trope named for a Lordi song. For other non-threatening supernatural beings, see DontFearTheReaper.

->The devil is a loser and he's my bitch
->For better or for worse and you don't care which
->The devil is a loser and he's my bitch
->Runnin' into trouble you skitch
->He's my bitch
->-- '''{{Lordi}}''', ''The Devil's a Loser (And He's My Bitch)''

->'''Utahraptor''': Hey, T-Rex, isn't it great how the Devil is PRETTY LAME?\\
'''The Devil''': [[color:maroon:[[AC:I WOULD DISAGREE WITH THAT PARTICULAR ASSESSMENT. T-REX, YOUR COMPANION IS CLEARLY UNFAMILIAR WITH MY PROWESS IN THE REALM OF {{MMORPG}}S. THE CHRONICLES OF MY DARK ELF CHARACTER ARE ASSUREDLY THE STUFF OF LEGEND.]]]]
->-- ''DinosaurComics, "[[http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000498.html The Devil in: MMORPGS]]"''