The One With Lucifer, Good and Evil

I watched the "Fallen" trilogy last night again for no particular reason except that I just felt like it because I haven't in a while, and again it got me thinking about so many things (most of which I'll be rambling on about right here, right now). Well, the first thing it made me think about was that it was really stupid not to develop it into a miniseries. The second thing was that I still had to buy the books. The reason I haven't yet is mostly because I don't seem to be able to find the forth book anywhere and I don't want to only own the first three, never knowing how the story would end. But frankly, I think that after last night, I want it bad enough to go for it anyway. But apart from that, it got me thinking again about good and evil and how they are represented and defined in this world.



I think "Fallen" is for everyone with a brain or rather a brain and an imaginative mind that allows a person to think outside the box and understand things instead of memorizing them. So yeah, there's a lot of thinking to be done in that little gem, or you miss more than half the point. You don't have to believe in God, or the Creator, as that being is referred to in the series (an approach I like much more because once it is rendered undefined by religion, the concept of such being is indeed much more plausible and believable). You don't have to believe in Heaven or Hell either. But there is not a single person in this world, as I said, with a brain, who can not believe in the existence of (and the division between) good and evil.



In "Fallen" we are introduced to the Powers, the angels whose job is to haunt down the Fallen and the Nephilim on earth and eliminate the so-called abominations. Insert here a small mythology lesson: after the Great War in Heaven, Lucifer's army was defeated and banished to earth where the now Fallen Angels fathered children with mortal women called Nephilim, who were half-angel-half-human. These Nephilim, according to the Bible, were the reason God sent the Flood. They perished in it, of course, but their fathers survived and continued to sire more and more Nephilim. In the Bible, the Nephilim are described as giants, as monstrous and essentially evil, but one must remember that the Bible was a book of tales written by men, not the Creator. A giant in the ancient days was merely another word for something so powerful it was much more than human. There were giants in various mythologies. In the Irish, the Tuatha were often recognized as giants; in the Greek, the gods and especially the Titans, their predecessors, were giants. So odds are the Nephilim were not horrendous in any way; in fact, being sired by angels, albeit Fallen, they couldn't have been. The truth is more likely to be that their very existence terrified the then simple-minded humans and they were burned like witches at a stake with tales woven around them. So did the Powers have the right to murder those countless innocents? Here rises the first question: were they really doing the Creator's work?



Here's an interesting side-note: it made no sense whatsoever for the Creator to send the Flood for no other reason than to cleanse the world of Nephilim. First, they are innocents and are not to blame for whatever sins their fathers committed, but most importantly, if he really wanted to punish the Fallen, it was in his power to kill them just by thinking it. Why didn't he then? Why go after their children? The Fallen survived the Flood, not like they could be killed by it and he knew it, and continued to father Nephilim, so according to this logic, he will have to flood the earth every few years until they stop. And let's refer to Azazel's very suitable response to Aaron telling him that "that Jesus character" is believed by some people to be the Son of God: "The Creator had a kid? Well, do as I say, not as I do." In other words, according to the Creator, he can set the rules, but is immune to follow them. If he has a kid, he's the Messiah, if one of his children has a kid, he or she is an abomination. On which side does that put the Creator then?



The Fallen themselves were guilty of what exactly? Lucifer waged the War out of jealousy – he became jealous of humans and the Creator's attention to them and so he raised an army against him. But who was Lucifer? His name means 'light bringer' in Latin. The name Satan that was later applied to him merely means 'adversary' in Hebrew; much like Nephilim actually comes from the Hebrew word 'naphal' which means 'fallen'. Lucifer was not evil. He was beautiful, wise and was gifted with the gift of foresight like very few of his kin. If anything, he was the Creator's possibly most perfected creation; according to some sources, ranked even higher than the archangel Michael. He was his father's favorite son. When Lucifer rose against him, he exercised free will, which as turned out, the Creator would not suffer; much like he did not suffer it with the Original Sin performed by Adam and Eve. He broke free from the Creator's chains and for that was punished and thrown down to the depth of Hell to reign there for eternity. The ones who followed him were guilty of the same sin, as they chose to rise against the Creator. In accordance with Dante's "Inferno" and the application of punishment worthy of the sin, these angels were punished justly: their exile on earth and the clipping of their wings was exactly what they deserved. Enter the Redeemer.



According to the prophecy, a Nephilim will be born with the power to redeem Fallen Angels, pardon their sins and return them to Heaven. Aaron Corbett is the prophesized Nephilim; the Redeemer. Once again the same issue is being raised – is he good or is he evil? The Powers, supposedly doing the Creator's work, are trying to kill him like an ordinary Nephilim and refuse to hear any of the so-called nonsense about a prophecy; they don't believe he is what he is; but we know he is. Undercover, he risks his own life to redeem Fallen Angels; his arms are covered in the Markings of the Redeemed, he possesses the power of healing, he is more powerful than any Nephilim that came before him. And yet here's the thing. His prophecy was written by Lucifer; he was sired by no other than Lucifer. So answer this: how could someone so good and pure be sired by someone so evil?



In the series, granted, they made Lucifer a bit more of an antagonist, but in the novels, from what I already read (and I think I'll be damned if I don't read them all soon enough), Aaron's creation in itself is the embodiment of Lucifer's repentance. He wrote the prophecy a few thousands years ago, so if he knew all along the Redeemer Nephilim would be his own child, he could have sired him much sooner, but unlike most other Fallen, Lucifer did not sire countless abominations, it is debatable he sired any at all. He didn't simply sire a kid to get himself back to Heaven and cause more trouble. He foresaw the birth of the Redeemer as a Nephilim, but such visions come only from the Creator himself, so Lucifer had no hand in it. In spite of all his power, he is but an archangel, a Fallen one at that; he cannot will things into being. So why did the Creator decide to have the Redeemer sired by no other than the Fallen of all Fallen? Was it merely an ironic joke?



The only thing that may justify all of the above open questions is that the entire thing was planned out by the Creator. He made Lucifer in his own image, after all; he made Lucifer the way the archangel turned out, bit by bit. And so Lucifer was supposed to betray the Creator and be exiled to earth; it had been foretold. It all comes down to one fact: Lucifer was the Creator's final and most important creation: that of evil. "What is good without evil? Does doing the right thing have any meaning if there is no alternative?" These are the words of Lucifer to Aaron when the two finally meet. If there was no evil in this world, how could there be good? What Lucifer's existence proves is that both good and evil are a matter of choice and free will is the path that leads to either or both. Lucifer chose to follow his path, but he too feels remorse; he too feels regret; he too in a sense was a victim. He possesses the same qualities as the humans he was so jealous of. The fact that the cause of all the evil could sire something so good, something that would have the power to forgive and redeem, means that there is no such thing as pure evil; not even in the Devil himself, if one chooses to call him that way.



Lucifer, as the other Fallen, is punished by his sins. He is not the King of Hell; he is its most condemned prisoner (like the Devil in Dante's "Inferno"). Like Azazel, who led the Fallen Angels onto earth after Lucifer's downfall and his punishment was to be chained to a stone slab for 5,000 years (in other words, he wanted earth, he got it). But Azazel was the true embodiment of the seven deadly sins, not Lucifer. When Vilma suggested Aaron might redeem him, Azazel told him to "keep this voodoo" to himself. Lucifer, on the other hand, nearly begged to be redeemed. Even in "Fallen", even though they made his character darker than he was, that was something that could not be overlooked: Aaron sensed the most powerful sense of regret in his father, more powerful than any he had ever sensed with any other Fallen he had redeemed: Lucifer's repentance was pure and true, regardless of how evil he may have been presented. And yet he could not go home.



Only a fool would believe that Lucifer would have wreaked Hell in Heaven if allowed to return. It was no more than a smokescreen used as an excuse to keep him in Hell. He would not start the War again for obvious reasons and before the War, Heaven was the embodiment of Heaven and Lucifer was his father's right hand. Aaron could not restore him to Heaven because if he did, evil would be gone from the earth and consequently, so would good. Lucifer was destined to rebel; he was doomed to fulfill the Creator's plan in maintaining the balance between good and evil. In a sense, he may be the greatest victim of all because his own father essentially doomed him to this fate. Lucifer and his own right hand, Azazel are the only two Fallen who can never be redeemed. The Creator, it appears, manipulated the entire Great War for one simple reason: he realized he had yet to create evil.



So again, the same question: who is good and who is evil?

Mood: Philosophic
Listening to: Nirvana - Plateau (unplugged)