What does anyone else think about the decline of the devil in literary or fictional sources? I'm watching Bedazzled, the latest version not the earlier version, not sure exactly which it is that I like the best, the more modern one I think is a little more raunchy, and thinking about how the whole devil as "tempter" or attempting to buy souls has disappeared as a trope, I wonder if this is because of the rise of atheism, culturally, tropes like the "sell your soul" idea are just fictional tricks and tropes rather than beliefs.
Radio 4 had a brilliant "Old Harry's Game" series but it was kind of retro, unintentionally, or so I thought in some ways, and its from a few years back, occasionally resurrected with seasonal one offs.
There was a good ninties (I think it was ninties) film in which a guy installs a satellite dish in his yard and it opens a portal to hell, the denizens of which are creating faux horrorific, torture shows to try and preoccupy the devil in order that they can take over while he is distracted, at least in their relative departments, it was brilliant but I dont remember who was in it and the title of it.
There were also book, Alfred Hitchcock anthologised a collection of stories called devils, devils, devils which were more or less all the devil as bargainer and contract writer type, the story about the guy asking the devil to fill some boots hung in a chimney with gold and then cutting the soles out of them in order that he has actually to fill the whole house with gold.
Like even if you dont buy the whole supernatural side of things or the demonology I like the idea of it as a trope, so its just disappeared altogether and I think that's a shame, there's less imagination about. We should bring it back.
Radio 4 had a brilliant "Old Harry's Game" series but it was kind of retro, unintentionally, or so I thought in some ways, and its from a few years back, occasionally resurrected with seasonal one offs.
There was a good ninties (I think it was ninties) film in which a guy installs a satellite dish in his yard and it opens a portal to hell, the denizens of which are creating faux horrorific, torture shows to try and preoccupy the devil in order that they can take over while he is distracted, at least in their relative departments, it was brilliant but I dont remember who was in it and the title of it.
There were also book, Alfred Hitchcock anthologised a collection of stories called devils, devils, devils which were more or less all the devil as bargainer and contract writer type, the story about the guy asking the devil to fill some boots hung in a chimney with gold and then cutting the soles out of them in order that he has actually to fill the whole house with gold.
Like even if you dont buy the whole supernatural side of things or the demonology I like the idea of it as a trope, so its just disappeared altogether and I think that's a shame, there's less imagination about. We should bring it back.