How old should a Devil-type villain be?

Like so ancient they predate creation itself? Or simply several hundreds or thousands of years old? What do you think would be the more fitting age for a Satanic Archetype?

I think that would depend on your setting's relationship with evil and, you know, what you want the figure to be, exactly. The Satanic Archetype page lists several different kinds of entities that would fall under the trope, from mundane individuals that are only devilish or have a Big Red Devil appearance to a primordial God of Evil or Lucifer-esque entity that is not actually meant to be the Judeo-Christian entity. A Time Abyss sort of age would make sense for a God of Evil or Satan/Lucifer-esque entity from the Time of Myths, while an age merely in the three or four digits could make sense for a character who is simply one of many devils/demons/other class of evil being.

Again, think through what you want this character to be, exactly, and the kind of being that would fit into your setting's relationship with evil and the gods/the supernatural, and their age should fall into place.

"Should Satanic Archetype of my setting be just a thousand or ten thousand years old?" from the POV of us humans (and therefore, your readers) is a meaningless question (unless something happened within the mentioned time span that has a serious impact on the setting). Such lifespan is unattainable for a human being, and therefore we have no experience of living that long and can't relate to such a being.

Much more useful, from the writer's POV, would be to ask yourself "Did the biggest agent of evil come first?" Answering it would have certain philosophical ramifications for your setting and where does your setting stand on the scale.

See this discussion for the reference (which, it turns out, the OP themselves started).

Edited by Millership on Oct 8th 2018 at 6:46:45 PM

I imagine the primary force of evil would be demons. They would have existed since the beginning of time, lived in a hellish dimension and spent most of their time sowing chaos and destruction.

The ruler of the demon realm is the demon who happens to be the most powerful at the moment. I imagine the Devil would be a demon lord who climbed the ranks and usurped the previous ruler. Though this kind of event almost never happens.

Despite this hierarchy, the lord of the demon realm is described as the Anthropomorphic Personification of evil and darkness.

There you have it, then. Since you want your big bad guy to have climbed through the ranks, it would likely work better if they were simply of some high age but not older than time.

That said, I'll note the same thing I did in the older thread: whatever you have that works, works, just make sure you pick the choices that work well for you.

I would imagine a Time Abyss would be appropriate for this type of character, though that doesn’t mean he can’t use modern slang or mannerisms—just make it clear, subtley or overtly, that he’s acting this way either to mimic and mock his victims or to put a potential contractor at ease.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Nov 5th 2018 at 1:22:55 PM

Here's a third option: A Satanic Archetype that is hundreds to thousands of years old, but isn't part of some sort of hierarchy.

Demons can be kind of narmy and dramatic - he could describe himself as being born from the shadows in dark caves, or being old when humans were just foundlings. It depends on whether you're going for a 'Humans invented demons' approach or that demons were around before humans.

He should say that he caused several historical events, somewhat like Sympathy for the Devil.

He should say that he caused several historical events, somewhat like Sympathy for the Devil.

You double posted.