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.
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#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
Okay so here’s the thing I keep coming back to.
Does devilman fail to do proper justice to the themes it lays the foundation for, or is it just really really quiet about its morals?
If its the latter, is it quiet for the sake of remaining palatable, or is it quiet because a story’s themes shouldnt have to be loud to be heard?
I dont think there’s a super clear answer. Or a right answer, even.
It could be that its a messy story that prioritizes being loud over actually saying something coherent. It could be that its a story that wanted very badly to be something it knew it couldnt, so it toed the line of what it wanted to say without ever really committing. Or it could be that the story is exactly as intended, and whatever themes are presented are explored exactly as much as they were intended to be… in which case, am I looking too deep into certain softer spoken suggestions, or were those parts quiet for a reason? What was the reason?
Basically my question is, was devilman a shallow story, a cowardly one, or one that came out exactly as intended?
If it is as intended, then why are certain things so unexplored? Or am I just asking for something to be said louder so I dont mistake it? Would that actually make the story better, or just easier?
Because here’s the thing. This story was intended to be staunchly anti-war.
So. The themes that come to mind for me. That the foundation is laid for. Would kind of be the whole point in that case.
But they’re kind of. Quiet. At best. Ignored or not intentionally present at worst.
I think thats what I keep coming back to. If youre really writing an anti-war story, then the actually causes of the war and the cycle of violence all needs to be addressed and digested. To vaguely skim over the concept of The Enemy being anything other than pure evil by nature is. Not it.
So idk. Im ok with wanting the story to be a bit more up-front than it is. Because frankly I dont think the intention was ever quite fully there the way I wish it was.
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#devilman #i wrote this at random moments in the middle of my day #and thought it was super incoherent #but then i come back to it and im right actually #so its getting posted
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Honestly, for me I really wish that any of the adaptations showed a bit more of the relatable nature of the devils to us. The closest they ever seem to get is mentioning that the devils need to hunt humans to survive, and that they’re capable of love (Sirene and Kaim.) But then they still push this sense of the devils just being evil. I feel like, to actually support an anti-war message, the devils need to be presented as something we can empathize with. A group of beings who are as diverse and flawed and morally-neutral in their existence as humans are. Also, I think they could have done more to explore why Satan is driven to take the actions he does as well. We know him as this ancient concept of pure evil, but there was a missed opportunity in humanizing him. They could have explored his own reasons for fighting in this war and joining with devils. They could have explored the source of his beef with heaven, and how thats factored into his decisions. Honestly my thoughts on this are way too much to fit into one response lol but basically, every side in this conflict has their own drives and reasons for what they’re doing. Presenting a conflict where the “enemy side” is just evil by nature is not at all supportive of a real anti-war message. If anything, it toes more the side of propaganda to do that. Taking it a step further, I think there could have also been a cool theme explored in the way this conflict is sort of orchestrated by god, who positions these two side to one another in how he creates and shoves them into the same space, sits the whole war out, but resets the world for it to happen again and again after Satan is the only one left. There’s a clear metaphor there, in my opinion, on the way war and conflict tends to make the people of both sides suffer, while the smaller groups of powerful political individuals making all the decisions are spared from the actual consequences of the war and oppression they cause.