It’s fair to say that Judeo-Christian societies have a particular fascination with the Devil. After all, this is considered to be the figure responsible for Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden, the person who tempted Christ in the desert for forty days and forty nights. This figure of temptation is rendered even more complex by the narrative of rebellion – the brightest of God’s angels turning against Divine order to incite rebellion and then being cast down to rule Hell. In many ways, it presents us with a dichotomous way to interpret the story: as a fall from grace which thus invites the opportunity for redemption, or that of an anarchic desire to sow chaos in an otherwise ordered world.
It feels as though stories which prominently feature in this part of our collective consciousness have taken a particular precedence of late. Two in particular have received a huge following: Lucifer and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Interestingly enough, both are comics, both are in fact spin-off characters from other hugely successful series (Sabrina from the Archie comics, and Lucifer from Neil Gaiman’s seminal Sandman graphic novels), both have been adapted into television shows which have attracted a devoted following, and now both are Netflix shows. This also comes amid Good Omens being released on Amazon; even though it doesn’t feature the figure of Satan, it nevertheless points to the interest in the heaven/hell dichotomy, and further underscores Gaiman’s place within these narrative explorations as he co-wrote the novel with Terry Pratchett and is showrunner on the series.
So what the devil can we take away from the popularity of these shows? Well, I’d argue that it points to our society’s interest with what the story of the devil represents: a fall from grace, questions of redemption, the prospect of temptation, and even the thorny issue of choice. Sabrina more directly challenges the supposed truths outlaid in the Bible (see aunt Zelda teaching children that the false god sought to deny Adam and Eve knowledge and thus make them slaves) and then makes a broader criticism of blind religious faith. By contrast, Lucifer doesn’t spend a lot of time challenging biblical history but suggests that the story of the devil is more complex than may initially appear. The introduction of Eve in season four is a good example of this – see her monologue about being created to be someone else’s wife and not having any identity beyond that until Lucifer showed her she could be a person in her own right. Thus, both shows, despite the very different versions of the devil they depict, strongly feature these questions and show the characters struggling with them.
If we take the story of the devil, and indeed much of our religious teachings, as a way to regulate morality, then these shows look at questions of moral behaviour within the context of a framework which has existed to assist us in arriving at answers. Questions that seem to arise include what does it mean to be ‘good’, that we accept the punishments and torture we believe we deserve, temptation, and how much of our behaviour is determined by how other people define us. To that end, when Lucifer’s physical appearance [SPOILER] becomes increasingly demonic in season 4 as a result of his self-perception as a bad person, it serves as an exaggerated metaphor. How we see ourselves can feed into how we behave, but as the season’s finale showed, it is within our power to behave better and in so doing, change how we see ourselves.
In Sabrina, we see the manner in which the teachings of the Church of the Night and the lives of its parishioners are centred upon the pursuit of personal freedom. It thus implicitly (and explicitly) suggests that the directions on how to live and behave as laid out in the Bible and Judeo-Christian teachings are in fact a way to incite control and curtail personal freedom rather than a way to tell people how to live a morally ‘good’ life. As such, what becomes good is therefore the pursuit of personal satisfaction. However, much of the show reveals that the Church of Night’s teachings are in fact just as repressive and restrictive as those of the ultra-orthodox religions. In other words, the way Sabrina is structured almost places Sabrina in the position of Satan-esque rebel questioning what she has simply been forced to believe, and going against the moral authority as laid out by her deity.
The most significant contrast between the two shows is the fact that Lucifer is the central character in Lucifer, while in Sabrina, Satan is a largely peripheral figure whose presence is inferred more than it is definite until [SPOILER] the final episodes of season two. Whereas much of his appearance was in the incarnation of a goat-like creature until he assumes human form and becomes a significant direct actor within the denouement of the season. Moreover, Lucifer is someone struggling with the understanding of who he is and whether much of his self-understanding is predicated on the idea of playing a role that has been ascribed to him by others. The idea of the devil in therapy (and props here must go to Rachel Harris who plays Linda with finesse and wry humour) was initially hilarious to me, but as it has endured across the show’s four seasons, it becomes a space in which Lucifer genuinely exposes his vulnerabilities, and even has the occasional breakthrough, paving the way to a redemption for him.
If we return to the dichotomous way of really distilling the story of the devil (a fall from grace and a struggle for redemption vs a through-and-through force for chaos), Sabrina and Lucifer each take a side. Sabrina’s devil is a figure of self-interest, seeking to manipulate people around him to achieve his own demonic ends. By contrast, Lucifer shows us someone trying to be a better person.
They’re both shows that deal with the figure of Satan, and they’re both devilishly good. In the diametrically opposite way they both present and interpret the story of the devil, they demonstrate the malleability of the figure who has dominated so much of our society’s historic imaginings. But really, the best way to arrive at your own conclusion about this is to watch them if you haven’t, and re-watch them if you have.
