#dc demons

Regardless, i was snooping on the tags for Raven again and found this mini-lecture on the semantics of Hell!Demon vs DimensionalRift!Demon in dc, and the author mentioned how much more powerful Raven's story is if she is considered to be this inherently evil creature that chooses good despite her instincts that literally radiate #badvibes off of her.

And i began to hear the rattling of genius within my mostly deserted skull. So now Everyone must bear witness to my unraveling.

K so Trigon is pretty much established to be less Demon and more so Demon God, right? And has thusly fecked his way through the dimensional void, spawning his little half-demon babies, yeah?

Our boy's got 7 children, each forming the living embodiment of humanities worst traits. (As explained via convenient Western Religious analogies).

1. Pride

2. Sloth

3. Wrath

4. Lust

5. Greed

6. Gluttony

7. Envy ( full disclosure, took me 15 min to remember this one, which is sad and funny all on its own. Sorry not sorry dude )

Now, daddy-dearest wanna rule the universe, but needs a ride to do it, so he picks one of his kids, and boom, sudden Anti-christ, fair enough, demon-gotta-demon. So Trigon looks at his selection and chooses his only daughter, that'd be our girl Raven.

This is where i propose, Trigon Fucked Up, and inadvertently provided Raven with the only circumstances that would allow her to defy him.

With his other children, he clearly has total control of them, and to be fair Rae does have several altering factor that could contribute to her breaking free, Azarath and Azar's teachings included. But i dont think she needed them, i think she would have gone against him anyway.

Raven is mentioned to be his most powerful offspring, go off girl, but more importantly, those Sins up there, Our girl is Pride. Trigon chose Pride to be his portal.

( Which btw is the most typically pseudo-fatherly patriarchal bullshit and i am kind of here for it. :D )

Anyway, it is important that the sins are not just strong characteristics within these guys, the are the living fundamental expressions of these concepts. Nothing will ever alter who they are or how they are at their core.

Pride is the only sin that could have failed the portal.

Wrath, Lust, and Greed can be warped into believing it served their own goals

Sloth cant be bothered to fight it

Gluttony sees it as an expansion to their need to consume everything

Envy would do it just to prevent the others from getting there first

But Pride fundamentally cannot allow itself to submit to another. It has to come out on top, second best or equal share isnt good enough.

Raven has to fight him, because to do anything else is to war with her very nature, which is impossible. She can do good because the Sins are simply flaws, not in of themselves damning.

Admittedly i misspoke earlier, Dc Demons are not inherently Evil, they are inherently Malicious, ( which if youve spent any amount of time with preteens you know are not actually the same. )

Raven directs her darker natured instincts at bad guys and her father, still maintaining her nature as Pride, after all she is the most powerful Titan, raw power wise, and she knows it. Pride is content without constantly having to prove herself becuse she lacks the Envy amd Greed that usually come with excessive pride flaws.

Sorry, I disagree with that, and for me, that seems like such a pointless technically :)

But like you said, DC has pointed out Trigon is not from “The Hell” and technically isn’t a demon.

However, at the exact same time, he’s still largely considered to be a demon by DC.

Which makes sense, seeing as he’s an immortal malevolent entity that has all the bells and whistles of a demon (+ more) and lives in a dimension, that for all intents and purposes is hell or a hell-dimension.

It just seems very silly to me, to say Trigon’s technically not demon.

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I think Hell (demons) should go beyond Lucifer or I guess really, human/earth religion in the DC world. I mean, why the hell not? (ha!)

What is hell? What is a demon?

Does hell and demons only exist in relation to more western-centric religious ideas? What about other religions, on earth and otherwise?

What about all the other planets in the universe? Other dimensions?

Are demons only applicable to humans and earth?

Do other planets/dimensions have afterlives specific to their religions? Hells or heavens, or something else altogether? What about their Gods or God?

Or is that all false and there is only one “God?” The Judeo-Christian-Islamic god?

For me, that limits so many possibilities. Especially considering how wide and complicated the DC universe actually is.

Furthermore, what’s the difference between a hell-like dimension, a hell dimension or simply hell?

While I don’t see Trigon or Raven being related to Lucifer, “God,” or Hell (specifically the Hell we see other DC heroes deal with), the two 100% count as demons.

Especially, since I think that complicates the idea of what demons are and makes demons go beyond Earth and more specifically, Christianity.

Slightly related (not really), I was never fan of how in BTVS and Angel, only crosses worked against vampires and no other symbols of religion. Why was Christianity the only religion that could hurt vampires?

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Personally, I just like the idea of Raven being a full-on demon (or part-demon).

Again, her classifying as one, just expands the idea of what demons are and makes things like religion, far more confusing in the DC world (like our own).

I mean, if you know there are angels and demons, and that holy water and crosses absolutely work on demons, doesn’t that just make Christianity an objective reality?

Isn’t it more interesting, if yes that stuff can work on some demons, but not for others? That you get the very frustrating answer, of - “it depends on what kind of demon.”

I think so.

I like the idea of someone who thinks they have a solid idea of what demons are and what works on them, have all that put into question once Raven comes into the picture. Because some of those things do apply to her, but others simply don’t.

Throwing holy water on Raven will only get you one very annoyed and wet demoness. But blast some holy magic at her and you might get a different story.

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This might just be me.

But I think saying Raven isn’t a demon, creatures that are objectively evil in DC canon, kind of takes away from the fact that Raven is this kind and caring individual, who is ultimately good.

Because, if she isn’t a demon (or a "true demon" as we think of them), then her being good isn’t necessarily this revolutionary idea.

It can still be one, for sure.

But it seems like someone can easily explain Raven being good, by simply saying - children aren’t their parents. Just because Trigon is evil, doesn’t mean Raven is.

Raven being born a good person (or neutral) who has this darker side that can take over her is all well and good (I’m certainly not complaining).

But that isn’t nearly as interesting to me as the concept of Raven, because she is part-demon, was born this malevolent entity, and aside from sheer power/being Trigon’s portal, is technically no different than any other demon.

And yet, she literally rewrote her very nature, by choosing to be good. She consistently chose the harder path for herself, literally defying the universe, and made the moral waters of good and evil, all the murkier.

And maybe it wasn’t just hard-work.

Maybe Raven got lucky because she was raised on Azarath or because of all her power / soul-self (or whatever); maybe she simply had an advantage over other demons, because she had so many more opportunities to learn how to be good.

I don’t know, I just love the idea that Raven was born half-demon (full on objectively evil demon) and was fated to destroy everything – either by freeing Trigon or by destroying everything herself.

And that’s it. No surprise twist or anything, no secret fate where she was also supposed to defeat Trigon.

No. Raven (and Trigon) were supposed to be how everything ended, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Except, that didn’t happen. This young woman fought tooth and nail to be someone else, to be someone who is good and kind.

And she succeeded.

The forces of the universe, that everything else has to bend to, were challenged by this small, stubborn woman; and one of them broke, and that one wasn’t Raven.

There’s also the added beauty of free-will.

DC's Main Villain Darkseid, main thing is to completely enslave the universe and destroy free-will with the anti-life equation. And while Raven has nothing to do with Darkseid, free-will being a factor in other DC stories, puts a smile on my face.

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Sorry, anon. You didn't ask for any of this.

You sent a message sort of at the wrong time (or right time, depending on how think about it), as I was writing down my ideas/headcanons of what demons and hell are in DC, or at least how I think of them.

And while you didn’t bring up religion and earth, I was already thinking about this stuff, so that’s on me.

I just like the idea of magic and demons/angels going beyond Earth and humanity, because usually in DC, that stuff seems to stay with Earth.

You are right though.

While DC does classify Trigon as Demon, they do seem to specify (or fans in charge of the wiki specify) that since he’s not from The “Hell,” he’s simply more akin to an entity that can be called a demon, rather than an actual one

But I find that to be boring, and again, a very silly and pointless technicality.

I would personally rather DC be like - Hell, Demons, and all of that nonsense are far more complicated than what we humans or mortals can possibly understand.

In my view,

Demons are the only creatures that can not only come from hell, but can also survive and thrive there as well.

Hell is a singular dimension that is made up of billions of different hell dimensions that simultaneously overlap and never interact with one another. Some of these hells are afterlife-dimensions that are the final destination for certain mortal souls, and others go beyond such simple ideas.