Snippets and Drafts
This is where pieces of the project will be posted as they are written (until the whole thing is complete, at which point it will be posted to Ao3. There may also occasionally just be random non-prose thoughts dumped here that don't fit anywhere else at the moment. I'll probably figure out a better organizational process later.
Dumping out devilman thoughts today.
I know I’m far from the first person to think about this, but I don’t feel like it’s given enough attention. What I’m talking about is the really noticeable lack of discussion about god as a character/driving force throughout the story (and I mean the lack of discussion on the fandom’s end as well as within the stories.)
Like, you really have the all-powerful being who is the only thing in existence with the true ability to completely stop the war - to completely halt the cycle of violence. But they never intervene. Not until humans and devils have all destroyed one another. Not until Lucifer has finally killed Akira, and he’s all that’s left, alone on a rock on a decimated earth, watching the stars and expounding on the concept of love to a cooling corpse.
THEN god intervenes. To scorch it all and start it over again, only for the same story to play out time and time again. The only consistent exception to this, really, is whenever divine force is shot down in the beginning phases of the war. Though usually, this just ends up causing destruction in a different way. It never saves anyone, it just overpowers a show of force from the devil’s side.
You could make the argument that god isn’t the same all-powerful being here that he’s seen as being in a larger cultural sense outside of this story. But I’d both disagree and say that’s a bad take. He clearly carries more power than anyone else, as again, when he does intervene it overpowers everything else. And yeah there’s the idea that he didn’t make devils, but that doesn’t make sense to me either. So much of this story is based both on christian mythology (or dantes inferno, but still).
To rewrite the concept of god in this way. And to practically ignore this character’s existence. ESPECIALLY in a story that is so much about the cycle of violence and the failings of humanity. It does the whole thing such an injustice.
In devilman, the war between devils and humans is ultimately constructed by god himself. Because it all comes back to the fact that he had to have created the devils in some manner - how else would they have come about? - and then tossed them aside to make room for humans. Running parallel to the way he tossed aside one of his own angels for going against god’s authority. An angel who then went to the devils, joined with them and led them toward liberation.
What else were the devils supposed to do? What else was Lucifer supposed to do?
God is absent from the story until there’s nothing left. Then he does it all over again. For what? To punish lucifer and the devils? Again and again for their refusal to lay down and die quietly? And it’s not to protect humans - how many human lives are destroyed in the process?
God is absent from this story and we continue to let him be. We focus so much on Akira and Ryo, and on trying to save them and rewrite their connection into something that can be saved. We try to rewrite it so Miki lives, and the war is averted. But that doesn’t make sense to me.
This story has already been written to be a tragedy. The omniscient, all-powerful god of the story has decided that’s what it’s meant to be.
As long as lucifer lives to the end of the story, it will be scrapped and retold again and again. And if lucifer were to die? That would still be a tragedy, let’s be honest.
The cycle of violence has already been set in motion, and it will not be stopped so easily. That’s important to me. Because ultimately, erasing the tragedy of it suggests there would be an easy solution to the world’s problems - that escaping oppression is as simple as being kind and quiet in the face of your own eradication, that stopping a war is as simple as crying in front of the right person, and that making the right choices are as easy as listening to what you’re told is “good.”
Devilman is a tragedy, but I don’t think that’s inherently nihilistic. I think it can make you think and ask questions and consider layers to the problem. It will not give answers, because it’s not that easy - because if we had those answers then the world wouldn’t be the way it is. What we see at the end isn’t meant to be a prediction, or even a threat. It’s simply null - this is complex and painful, and our characters were not able to figure it out, because of that. Possibly, very likely, because they were not able to see outside of their own perspectives and drives (who could? At a certain point, that would mean abandoning feeling. There’s a reason Michael is the most unsettling character in any of the stories to me.)
I mean, sure. God always had an easy answer. He probably wants the story to go this way.
- - -
#idk if theres an actual single point here #and i dont think this is anything novel #i think most people who like devilman like it specifically because of the humanity it gives devils and lucifer #the way it questions christianitys view of good and bad #god is considered a villain and i know thats nothing new #but i feel like we never really talk about it #and the story never touched on it enough #i feel like that does the whole thing a disservice #anyway i have a headache and im tired but im also right #maybe ill add to this later once my thoughts start making more sense #part of how i would present this story would involve putting more attention on god as a villain #and on the way so many of these characters struggles are orchestrated by bigger hands than the ones trying to fix them #on how solving the problem will never be as simple as killing the enemy right in front of you #even if it isnt completely ineffectual #that ceo was gunned down in the street #lets be real its not going to change much #it didnt do nothing and id be lying if i didnt say the dude was based for doing it #but its not going to fix the problem #it could potentially be a step #time will tell i think #im rambling at this point #my point is this story is a tragedy for a reason #and its because god is the villain that it can never be anything but a tragedy #thats not nihilistic because in real life i dont believe in god #i dont believe the source of the problem is something untouchable and all powerful #but its bigger than two people #my point is devilman is a tragedy and its better that way #i need a nap #devilman