I've been rereading Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy (so called because the story has a happy ending). It is the story of the poet's journey through Hell (The Inferno), Purgatory (The Purgatorio), and Paradise (The Paradiso).
The Inferno is perhaps the most famous of the three books of The Divine Comedy. He begins the story by telling about he found himself in a dark wood. He is assailed by three beast that represent the the divisions of Hell, albeit in reverse order: a leopard of malice, a lion of violence, and a she-wolf of incontinence. He is rescued by the shade of the poet Virgil, who tells him that a saintly woman called Beatrice has asked him to come to Dante's aid. Then Virgil leads Dante through Hell. At the Gates of Hell, they encounter the miserable shades of those who "lived without infamy and without praise"; in other words, people who lived only for themselves. They were unfaithful to both God and his enemies. Therefore, Heaven will not take them and nor will Hell.
In Dante's mind, Hell is the enormous impact crater left by Lucifer/Satan when he was cast out of Heaven. It was believed at the time that Hell was located underneath Jerusalem. There are nine circles, each one decreasing in size the further down it goes. They are as follows:
Circle 1: Virtuous Pagans and the Unbaptized.
Circle 2: The Lustful.
Circle 3: The Gluttonous.
Circle 4: The Avaricious and The Prodigal.
Circle 5: The Wrathful and The Sullen.
Circle 6: The Heretics.
Circle 7: The Violent (divided into three rings: 1,Violence to Others, 2, Violence to Self, and 3, Blasphemers).
Circle 8: The Fraudulent (Divided into ten sections: 1, Panderers and Seducers, 2, Flatterers, 3, Simoniacs, 4, Sorcerers,Diviners, and False Prophets, 5, Barrators, 6, Hypocrites,7, Thieves, 8, Evil Counselors, 9, Sowers of Discord, and 10, Falsifiers of varying sorts).
Circle 9: Traitors. In Dante's time, treachery was considered the worst possible sin.
At the very bottom of Hell is Satan the Devil. He is imprisoned there for eternity for committing the ultimate sin: Treachery against God. Dante and Virgil climb down Satan's back and escape to the other side of the world. From there, they move on to Purgatory.
It's just an epic poem about one man's learning to recognize sin for what it is. However, some dingbat had to make a video game out the story and completely trash it. In the game version, Dante is a crusader who commits some serious crimes while at war. Beatrice is Dante's lover. Her soul has been kidnapped by the Devil and taken into Hell, where the Devil slowly begin to turn her into a succubus. Dante must go and rescue her, and to do that, he must fight and destroy the demons that inhabit every level. He rescues souls along the way.
See the problem? There are several. First off, Beatrice, who died in 1290 at the early age of twenty-four, was already in Heaven, and evil cannot enter there. Second, only a few demons serve as guards in Hell and most of them are characters from classical Greco-Roman mythology (i.e. Cerberus, Minotaur, etc.). The demons are also simply there to torment the souls of the damned. They assail Dante, but Virgil helps him. Thirdly, in the poem, Satan is trapped forever in ice. Not matter how hard he struggles, the ice makes it impossible for him to escape. Fourth off,, it was Beatrice who sent Virgil to rescue Dante because she saw him lost in the dark woods. She saw him being assailed by the three beasts and wanted to help him. And finally, the damned cannot leave Hell. It is their prison forever. Oh, and Dante was a scholar, never a soldier. And he was in love with Beatrice, but she didn't really know him; so it was pretty one-sided.
I haven't played the video game. However, I have read the premise and seen stills from the game. And you know what, it's trash. And you don't even need to play the game to notice that.
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