Saturday 22 January 2022

A Familiar Theme

"The Trouble Twisters," V.

Adzel reminisces about his home planet, Woden:

"...a certain sense of belonging, an innocence, was forever gone." (p. 132)

Lucifer Morningstar, retired as Lord of Hell, is asked what he will do next:

Lucifer: I don't know... I could not return to the silver city - - even if I wished to. I could never again be an angel ...
Innocence once lost, can never be regained.
-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Season Of Mists (New York, 1992), EPISODE 2, p. 83, panels 4-5.
 
We have found this theme mainly in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series and have quoted Manse Everard's reflection on "The Midwest of his boyhood...a world forever lost..." several times. See here. 
   

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Theologically, I have to disagree with Gaiman. The Catholic Church believes, as part of the revelation granted to her, that Satan will eternally and never cease to be the enemy of God, that he does not WANT to "retire" as Lord of Hell.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

THE SANDMAN is fiction, nothing more. But writers who regard gods, angels and demons as myths (meaningful stories) can create different kinds of stories about them. Gaiman's Lucifer is certainly not Milton's Satan. In fact, Lucifer quotes "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" but then (using the royal "we" because he has not yet retired as King of Hell) comments, "We didn't say it. Milton said it. And he was blind."

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Of course fiction writers can use the idea of Satan any way they wish. But, since I believe Satan to be a real being, I'm uneasy about stories that seems to minimize how evil he is.

Ad astra! Sean