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Feb. 20th, 2006 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI was rereading Dante's Inferno this afternoon, as you do, and right there in Canto 33 I found the perfect solution to the biggest problem in the worldbuilding of the movie Constantine.
That problem is, of course, half-breeds. The novelization asserts that the demon and angel presences on Earth are actually damned or blessed souls that were sent back to earth. That would make Balthazar and Gabriel both former humans, which is problematic. Having John call them "half-breeds" implies that this was the construct the writers were using. However, this presents certain problems dogmatically - if the very best are sent back to Earth, then Heaven isn't really a reward; if the very worst are sent back to Earth, then Hell isn't really punishment. The presumption is that the half-demons on Earth are enjoying gallavanting around tormenting humans, which means that they aren't being punished, which invalidates the concept of Divine justice.
See my problem with that? And given that Balthazar and Gabriel are both completely non-human (Balthazar asserts, "Fire! I was born of this", and Gabriel's entire motivation is his exclusion from humanity) clearly there must be another explanation for the half-breeds.
One solution is to call John's term a misnomer - they aren't half anything, they're just not fully-manifested demons or angels. But there's a more elegant answer.
Which brings me to Dante, and Canto 33:
"as soon as the soul betrays/as I did, its body is taken over by a demon, who then governs it until his time has all revolved; the soul falls down into this cistern."
Perfect, no? This verse is dogmatically problematic on its own - if there are some acts which are so evil that the soul is immediately condemned to hell, then redemption and absolution have only limited application. It can be rationalized in Dante's case as an excuse for putting people that were still living in his hell, but it's a fairly powerful statement if taken at face value. (Yes, I did write a paper on this in college, why do you ask?)
In Constantine, however, this verse from Dante doesn't invalidate anything. The power of repentance is already tempered: John is damned because he committed suicide, a situation which leaves him alive but without the hope of redemption or absolution. So, asserting that a soul can be damned immediately to hell for certain acts (do not pass go, do not collect $200) makes perfect sense.
If we extend this logic to the divine side (that it is possible for a person's soul to be sent to Heaven before their death), then the so-called half-breeds would be human shells populated by demons and angels.
Which makes Balthazar and Gabriel both fully immortal and "half-breeds."
Fucking brilliant, I'm telling you.
And I'm only slightly disturbed that reading Dante makes me think of fanfic.
cross-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
constancanon
That problem is, of course, half-breeds. The novelization asserts that the demon and angel presences on Earth are actually damned or blessed souls that were sent back to earth. That would make Balthazar and Gabriel both former humans, which is problematic. Having John call them "half-breeds" implies that this was the construct the writers were using. However, this presents certain problems dogmatically - if the very best are sent back to Earth, then Heaven isn't really a reward; if the very worst are sent back to Earth, then Hell isn't really punishment. The presumption is that the half-demons on Earth are enjoying gallavanting around tormenting humans, which means that they aren't being punished, which invalidates the concept of Divine justice.
See my problem with that? And given that Balthazar and Gabriel are both completely non-human (Balthazar asserts, "Fire! I was born of this", and Gabriel's entire motivation is his exclusion from humanity) clearly there must be another explanation for the half-breeds.
One solution is to call John's term a misnomer - they aren't half anything, they're just not fully-manifested demons or angels. But there's a more elegant answer.
Which brings me to Dante, and Canto 33:
"as soon as the soul betrays/as I did, its body is taken over by a demon, who then governs it until his time has all revolved; the soul falls down into this cistern."
Perfect, no? This verse is dogmatically problematic on its own - if there are some acts which are so evil that the soul is immediately condemned to hell, then redemption and absolution have only limited application. It can be rationalized in Dante's case as an excuse for putting people that were still living in his hell, but it's a fairly powerful statement if taken at face value. (Yes, I did write a paper on this in college, why do you ask?)
In Constantine, however, this verse from Dante doesn't invalidate anything. The power of repentance is already tempered: John is damned because he committed suicide, a situation which leaves him alive but without the hope of redemption or absolution. So, asserting that a soul can be damned immediately to hell for certain acts (do not pass go, do not collect $200) makes perfect sense.
If we extend this logic to the divine side (that it is possible for a person's soul to be sent to Heaven before their death), then the so-called half-breeds would be human shells populated by demons and angels.
Which makes Balthazar and Gabriel both fully immortal and "half-breeds."
Fucking brilliant, I'm telling you.
And I'm only slightly disturbed that reading Dante makes me think of fanfic.
cross-posted to
constancanon![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-02-21 02:36 pm (UTC)What's that bit in the Bible, in Genesis before the flood, about angels breeding with the daughters of men?
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Date: 2006-02-21 03:33 pm (UTC)The Dante theory presents some other interesting side effects, though. If a demon can only walk in this world when a human has sinned so badly that they are damned irredeemably (and likewise with the angels), then there are natural limitations on the number of half-breeds in this plane. When John sends a half-breed back to Hell, it has to wait for another body to become available, which puts some limitations on their power. Otherwise, John sends them to Hell and they pop right back up again.
It would also mean that the number of half-breeds on a given side would be entirely dependent on the number of humans on that side - giving an advantage to whichever side is winning the war. Which means that there are probably far more half-demons walking around than half-angels, which would create more interesting conundrums.
Of course, none of this explains Chas becoming an angel, but I pretty much view that as an extreme case.
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Date: 2006-02-21 06:03 pm (UTC)Chas becoming an angel..well, maybe John was drinking absinthe that day.
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Date: 2006-02-21 06:37 pm (UTC)That would explain a few things...
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Date: 2006-02-21 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-02-22 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 01:49 am (UTC)