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God is the overarching antagonist of the Demon Lord Dante and Devilman franchises. He originally attempted to wipe out the demon race but failed, and by the time the demons make their move he had already turned their conflict into an eternal "game", just to punish Satan for his betrayal forever. Though he is rarely seen, his actions are gradually revealed to be behind the majority, if not all of the events that occur in the story.
Unlike the original iteration of the Abrahamic God who can be stern with at worst questionable methods but ultimately a well-meaning father, this version of the supreme being is nothing but a narcissistic psychopath, who created the titans, humans, demons, the Earth, the universe and it's realities such as Hell and Heaven, and possibly even the angels solely to boost his ego, treating them as his playthings in what he sadistically sees as an entertaining game.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
Demon Lord Dante[]
- He arrives on the Earth as an extraterrestrial being of flame that presents itself as a false prophet who demands blind worship from all the humans living on the planet, and isn't shown to have any other goal or motivation beyond seeking control over all life.
- When people refused to bow to him, he torched their cities, resulting in vast destruction and the deaths of dozens of humans.
- The destruction of the cities not only murdered large amounts of people, but also caused his own energy to merge with humans, corrupting a majority of the remaining populace if not the entire human race into demons. At first, this could be arguably excused by the fact he supposedly didn't want to turn people into demons as part of his rampages, and only kill anyone who opposed him. He then definitely hits the Moral Event Horizon once it's revealed the whole conflict between humans and demons was indeed done by him on purpose from the very beginning, simply because he found it "entertaining".
- Paired together with the amount of destruction caused by the demon race he created, even without counting his aforementioned smiting of the cities who refused to worship him his actions indirectly result in the deaths of even more people, to a nearly uncalculable count.
- The closest trait he has to any redeeming qualities is his hatred of demons which can be completely justified as the demon race in the Devilman franchise are heinous creatures, but the story largely implies he doesn't despise demons out of any moral standards, and only holds them in contempt simply because they don't fit his ideal vision of order. His iteration in Devilman outright confirms this.
Go Nagai/Devilman[]
- Once the war between the demons and humanity has started, he comes down in the form of a massive ball of light that turns the entirety of Moscow into salt. This could be initially interpreted as him acting in "mysterious ways" at the very least attempting to intervene, and give humanity a fighting chance as the president of the USSR planned to launch a barrage of nuclear missiles that would have destroyed much of the world. Then all of the vaguely benevolent or redeeming intent in this is averted by his following actions, as he ends up sending thousands of his Angels to blow up the entire planet.
- The story makes it clear the Angels are vastly superior to most Demons and one angel on it's own would've presumably been enough to damage from cities to continents with a beam of light already, so it can't be justified as him trying to save humanity from demonkind either, since by sending thousands of angels he clearly had no intent of leaving any human survivors on the planet either.
- His hate of Satan could be arguably justified as his own son and his "right hand" betrayed him in the favor of the demons, which are a race of utterly brutal creatures, but even those events are not enough to justify resetting the entire universe and the lives of countless innocents in an endless time loop that affects reality as a whole merely to make Satan go through the same events over and over again.
- Despite being close to Pure Evil, Satan actually comes to the realization his actions and contempt towards humans were no different than God's unfair treatment of Demons after the world has been ravaged and Akira has died, and ends up regretting his actions. The time loop that torments him forever means he never gets to live after his final moments of redemption, as both reality and his memories will be erased by the next time loop for all of eternity, so it's made clear God didn't manipulate the events to teach Satan any sort of lesson, and simply tortures him out of sheer sadism.
- Much like his incarnation from Demon Lord Dante, he despises Demons as a race but not due to the destruction they cause or the threat they present to humanity, but only because he sees them as mistakes that aren't part of his intended design. His response to mankind perpetually evolving into demons each time he creates them is to exterminate all of them, destroy the Earth, and send them to Hell. He doesn't do really anything to avert humanity's evolution into demons, as he simply keeps reality in an eternal time loop where all of the same events are predestined to repeat themselves, and he aims to obliterate demonkind even if they retain their morality without becoming monsters or thrive in civilized societies, showing he doesn't hate them out of any moral concerns.
- Later, it's revealed he created mankind as a long running gambit knowing that Satan and the demons will forget their own origins as evolved humans and begin a war against them that would severely weaken each side, all so Heaven could descend afterwards, and crush the side that was still standing after the human-demon conflict, seemingly regardless of who won. This confirms him sending the angels to destroy the Earth wasn't a sort of mercy kill like it could've initially appeared as the planet was left a wasteland after Akira's battle with Satan since it was planned Heaven would wipe out the surviving faction from the very beginning, and his extermination of all life in Russia was no attempt to save humanity, but rather to prevent demonkind from becoming strong enough to win the next battle in what he essentially sees as a game.
AMON: The Darkside of Devilman[]
- It's further emphasized how he put the entire world in a time loop so all humans and demons live and die for nothing over and over, all of it just to make Satan suffer the loss of Akira Fudo repeatedly for all of eternity. Considering the death of Akira involves the human-demon conflict to happen, this makes him indirectly responsible of the mass destruction, murder (which includes a shown example of child murder, as Taro Makimura was brutally killed during it), and the rest of atrocities that occur in it as well.
- While the original Go Nagai manga at least held up the possibility he despised Demons due to being a mistake in his intended design but probably held humanity as a creation worth preserving, the fact he treats them essentially the same way as demons with the time loop shows he really has no regard for the human race either.
Devilman Lady[]
- After the human-demon conflict ravaged cities and Satan obliterated the world in his fight with Akira, it's revealed God actually didn't kill him, but instead tossed him into Hell as punishment. Despite Satan's status as a less than admirable figure, this doesn't showcase any redeeming qualities from God as he didn't do so with the intent of punishing Satan for the result of his actions on Earth (which he manipulated Satan and demonkind into doing to begin with), but simply just out of his desire to torture him for his rebellion, and it's clear he didn't care about the world or it's possible remaining inhabitants as he sent his Angels to destroy it regardless.
- It's further expanded how little he cares about the lives of humans when Akira and Jun Fudo discover Heaven is nothing like the paradise humanity had envisioned, and is only a prison of light for those who are entirely obedient to God, where he literally keeps them as his slaves. For all of his cruelty, his iteration from Demon Lord Dante left the possibility he only destroyed the humans who opposed his will, but this reveals even the populace that grant him the worship he demands are ultimately meaningless to him as well.
- It's mentioned how his Angels including the Archangel Michael (his "left hand") in general are shown to seemingly have next to no free will of their own, further showing how just like his treatment of Satan after the latter's rebellion and his disregard for humanity, he only values them for being things that blindly worship him and follow his command, almost as extensions of himself.
- Prior to the existence of humans and demons he created the Titans, but once they attempted to rebel against him, he created the dimension of Hell to cast them all out in the lower levels of it.
In General[]
- In earlier works, it was presented he supposedly began to retaliate against Satan because the Demons first attacked the Angels who peacefully came down to visit the Earth in the cretaceous era, but this is turned down seeing the callous disregard he holds towards the life of humans (including the ones who worship him in Heaven) in his actions, which is nearly equal to his treatment of demons as he's perfectly willing to repeat the war on Earth that is intended to weaken and destroy both humanity and demonkind. Considering his nearly pathological need for universal control and order, possibly even the lives of his own angels are meaningless to him as well, as it's implied he would cast away the Archangel Michael just like Satan if the latter were to rebel like him.
- Despite their differences, both his iteration from Demon Lord Dante (where he doesn't have his eternal feud with Satan) and all of Devilman share having no real objective beyond enslaving humanity, torturing both the people that worship and/or oppose him. Their terrible treatment of humanity also can't be justified as either of them being entities that could be "above morality" and/or supposedly don't comprehend morals and emotions, as both of them instigated the human-demon conflict for their own amusement.
- A recurrent theme of the series is to display how humans and demons are capable of stooping down into great lengths of nearly unjustified cruelty on their own, but even without counting all of his other actions, just putting the entirety of the world through the same cycle of death and destruction only to punish Satan at the cost of universal suffering make him equally as evil, if not arguably worse, so even the fact every side of the setting ranges from morally grey to malevolent does nothing to put God on a better light, specially as he is the overarching antagonist who is progressively revealed to be behind more and more of the events in the franchise.
Trivia[]
- Despite being the legitimate creator of the universe, it's other dimensions such as Heaven and Hell, the Earth, and even the species that predate both humanity and the demons in Devilman, his actions make him very similar to the Demiurge, an impersonator of God and another Pure Evil who also has the goal of eternally keeping mankind trapped and deluded as part of it's egotistical vision of control and order. Devilman Lady pushes the resemblance even closer as God even gets opposed by his own son Jesus Christ much like the gnostic Demiurge, however there's no figure of Sophia, or actual claims of him not being the real supreme being.
- His iteration from Demon Lord Dante actually makes him a false god much like the gnostic Demiurge, however he doesn't claim to be the creator of the universe, but is rather an extraterrestrial being of flame that presents itself as a deity to be worshipped and splits his own body into other separate "Gods".
- God was originally presented as a rather morally gray to possibly benevolent force that simply acted in mysterious ways or outright brutal methods to punish evil much like the Old Testament version of the Abrahamic God in the story, but once his temporal looping of the universe and his influence behind the human-demon conflict on Earth are revealed he steps directly into villain to PE territory, and only loses more of his initially possible redeeming traits with the subsequent stories. Similarly, his incarnation from Demon Lord Dante also crosses the moral event horizon once it's shown he had no other goals apart from ruling the Earth and being entirely willing to manipulate and exterminate thousands to fulfill it.
- His iteration from the 1972 TV series does not count as Pure Evil since he's an entirely different character, being merely just a demon who simply happens to be called or at least referred to as "God" (presumably as the God of the demons, and not the supreme being of the universe), and despite being the strongest in the Demon Tribe as well as Akira's final enemy, he presumably suffers from moral agency, as he's Zenon's bodyguard and demons as a whole are a race of Chaotic Evil creatures by nature. Also unlike Devilman's iteration of God, he's never implied to have manipulated all of the events behind the series, and he doesn't reset the universe in a time loop for all eternity.
- His allies such as the Angels and the Archangel Michael (who's shown to genuinely think he fights in humanity's favor in Devilman Lady) do not count as Pure Evil either despite committing mass populicide and genocide under his command, as they also suffer from moral agency since they're implied to lack a free will of their own and don't really do anything beyond serving as almost extensions of God's will, with the Archangel Lucifer being the one who was presumably given the capacity to rebel against him once he fused with a demon and became Satan (another example of Near Pure Evil, but not PE).
- He's one of the multiple iterations of the Christian God to be Pure Evil, alongside the depiction from Preacher, Randy Newman's song, Chuck Shurley, as well as Angel Sanctuary's YHWH and YHVH from Shin Megami Tensei.
- He also shares some direct resemblances to other PE depictions of the supreme being such as Chakravartin and Darren Aronofsky's Him, as all three literally keep the entire universe in a perpetual cycle of suffering they're fully aware of (Him even uses time loops to do so as well) and willingly extend for all eternity, simply due to their own egotistical purposes.
External Links[]
- God on the Devilman Wiki
- God on the Supreme Being Wiki
- God on the Versus Compendium Wiki
- God on the Villains Wiki