Thursday, February 8, 2018

How they compare: Satan (The Divine Comedy)



At the center of the Dark Inferno sits The Devil. They, frozen in the ice of the Lake of Cocytus, he lies for the greatest sin in all of history, personal betrayal of the Creator of all things. Powerful now, he was stronger still back in times lost.

How strong is Dante's devil exactly?


Lucifer in the Divine Comedy was actually the cause of Hell's creation, since during his fall, he was thrown to the Earth with such violence that the area he excavated with his body's impact as he rushed towards the center of the Earth became the Inferno itself symbolizing how his betrayal created eternal damnation. 

The amount of Earth displaced created the great mountain Purgatorio stretching back up into Heaven come out the other side of the Earth due to the equal and opposite reaction, symbolizing how sin caused the potential for redemption. 

Likewise the wingbeats of Lucifer's great wings create the winds of such intensity that it freezes Cocytus over, leaving him frozen and trapped for eternity. These winds are of such intensity that they can be felt throughout Hell. This would easily make Satan planetoid level, but this is only after being weakened, in his prime he was much stronger.


In his Angel Form, Lucifer was far stronger. The Angels of Dante's cosmology physically manifest as the fixed stars, the background of stars in the night sky. Being only their physical manifestation, this is easily scalable to their true dc and durability.

To understand why, we need to know what the Angels truly are. According to Dante, and nigh-heretical for the time, he proclaimed the Angels "actus purus", or "pure act", not beings of matter or potential but perfect realized action. As such they are non-physically entities and can't be attacked without at least mental plane capacity. As the Angels are compared to Bees pollinating the world with the pollen of the flower symbolizing Divine Love, it makes sense that Angels also have the ability to cause love, as well as associated traits in Dante's world, like heat, motion, creativity, creation, light, and so forth. They also have much enhanced intelligence and wisdom over humans.

Non-Physical Entities in Dante's Universe can move very fast. As in, fast enough to easily travel around the entire universe in minutes, speeds requiring at least trillions of times faster then light.

So now that we know how strong Dante's Satan is, how would he do in other verses?

Image result for DC Comics

In the DC Universe, Lucifer physically would compare to the strongest entities in the New 52 Earth like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Doomsday. That said they would have significant difficulty affecting Lucifer due to his nature as actus purus. It would require quite literally a god-level entity opposing him, like Wonder Woman using her Goddess of Truth powers, in order to stop him from conquering the Earth. In any other period though, any solid brick should be capable of stopping him.


In the Marvel Universe, Lucifer would most likely compare to a minor Herald of Galactus and would cause significant threat to the Earth since the few heroes who have the direct capacity to stop him would need to actually go all out which would risk threatening the Earth. That said he is massively shortchanged in terms of versatility compared to the likes of Thor and the Silver Surfer and while he could cause some damage, it is unlikely he could do more then that.


In the Bastard!! Universe, Dante's Satan would lack much of the versatility of almost any cosmic level entity, and would be able to be destroyed by any attack capable of destroying Eternal Atoms. However he has a massive speed advantage over the entire verse and in terms of power is probably just below the likes of the 7 Demon Lords putting him at least very high in the Demon Hierarchy in terms of raw power. While he would be able to cause immense advantage in the war against the Angels due to his massive speed allowing him to destroy their fleets and followers and getting away before the Angels getting to do anything, maybe even giving the Demons a decisive advantage for a while, it is most likely he would eventually due to one of the Seraphs catching him with an Eternal Atoms destroying attack.


In the God of High School Universe, Dante's Satan would be physically somewhat weaker but also somewhat faster then most of the top tiers including the GoH-verse Satan.  While he could lord over the high tiers of the verse, his lack of versatility means it is unlikely he would beat any of the top tiers in a one on one fight (though he may due to his nonphysical nature), though he could help significantly the side he chooses.


In the Warhammer 40k universe, Lucifer would be likely be equivalent to Greater Chaos Daemons, the most powerful conventional forces of Chaos who can grow the size of star systems, and would be a powerful dark force in his particular space sector, likely too strong even for the Primachs to handle given his non-physical nature. That said he would still be far below the Chaos Gods, for whom the Daemons are mere avatars or the God Emperor of Mankind.



In the Supernatural Verse, Lucifer would fit in very well. His Fallen Satan form is at almost the exact same level of power as most strong entities in the verse like it's Lucifer or Michael. He lacks the reality-warping of most of the cast but his true pre-fallen form would be far above them in terms of power. He would be able to easily beat any entity on Earth and would be a threat to the cosmos with the only entities able to stop him being God, the Darkness, and Death all of whom would be above at him universe level.


Fitting considering that Bayonetta's cosmology with in some places heavily inspired by Dante's. In the Bayonneta verse, Lucifer would, similar to some of the previous verses, be between the high tiers and the top tiers in terms of power. He lacks versatility and hax compared to the verse but has massively high speed though could eventually get caught due to the verse's time manipulation. He would be above most Lumen Sages, Umbra Witches, and Summons though beneath the strongest ones like Bayonneta or Balder. Most likely would become a very strange and powerful summon.

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