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A [[Perspective Flip]] as applied on a cosmic level, and a natural corollary to [[God Is Evil]].
You know the story: a long time ago, there was a conflict between the [[Powers That Be]]. The [[God|good guys]] won, and the bad guys got to suffer (a popular misconception would be to rule) in [[Hell]] instead. But it could be you're not getting the whole story. Maybe [[Satan|Old Scratch]] (or his in-world counterpart, [[Crystal Dragon Jesus|thinly-veiled]] or [[Hijacked
Another variation is that [[God]] isn't necessarily ''evil''; he and [[Satan]] may just have [[Creative Differences]]. Or maybe [[Neglectful Precursors|God]] just doesn't [[The Gods Must Be Lazy|care]]. It's even possible that he and [[Satan]] are actually good buddies. In these versions, if the reasons behind it are mentioned at all, [[Satan]]'s bad reputation may be chalked up to misinterpretation on the part of [[Humans Are Bastards|mankind]]; particularly if he and [[God]] don't really have anything against each other. It could even be that the entire "warring angels" part never really happened. "Demonizing" the, well, demons could be the work of a [[Corrupt Church]].
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Appears often in [[Rage Against the Heavens]] plots, although it doesn't have to - it's easy to portray [[God]] as the [[Big Bad]] without bringing [[Satan]] into it at all, usually by portraying humans as the [[Humans Are Special|good side]]. Also seen in settings with [[Black and Gray Morality]], where [[Satan]] may not be ''good'', but he's ''better''. This kind of one-two punch is a red flag that you're living in a [[Crapsack World]]. There's no telling what [[The Legions of Hell]] will be like in a [[Satan Is Good]] setting; they may or may not even work for him, and if they do they may be just as [[Wrongly Accused]] as their leader or he may be just barely keeping them in check.
The important distinction between [[Satan Is Good]] and [[Villain Protagonist]] or [[Sympathy for
If [[Satan Is Good]], expect to be treated to [[A Hell of a Time]] when you die, assuming you don't end up on [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven|the other side of the fence]]. Remember: [[Dark Is Not Evil]] and [[Light Is Not Good]].
Compare [[Cry for
{{examples}}
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* In ''[[Shina Dark]]'' he does appear to be good overall. Satan has all sorts of horrible things written about him (even to the point where he is believed to be a pedophile and a sex maniac). However, he really is just a good natured, lazy, couch potato, who has numerous 'accidental pervert' moments. In fact he doesn't even look like what you would expect him to look like. So much so that his Butler is often mistaken to be Satan. {{spoiler|Though refusing to fight ('It goes against the Beauty of battle if you fight the boss first') and sending your ''maid'' to fight first and then attempting to duck out of the battle with out fighting may not be considered good by some.}} Then again, if said maid is {{spoiler|a [[Robot Girl]] [[Person of Mass Destruction]]}}, that's pretty much justifiable.
* In ''[[Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok]]'', Loki the Trickster from [[Norse Mythology]] is not evil. Apparently Baldr tried to kill him and Loki killed him in self-defense; which caused Odin the All-Father to go insane and try to punish Loki by any means imaginable; even if it means trying to destroy the world in Ragnarok and blame it on him.
* In ''[[Bastard!!]]'', the fallen angel Lucifer {{spoiler|better known as Lucien Renlen, Dark Schneider's alter ego}} fights to protect humanity when all the other angels are trying to exterminate them.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
== Comic Books ==
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** His appearance in the ''[[The Sandman (Comic Book)|Sandman]]'' is more ambiguous. His first appearance seems rather standard Lord of Damnation, but his later appearances show him as a mostly neutral force in things, trying to live his own life. {{spoiler|Now that he's abandoned Hell. His rant about people choosing to come to Hell and their lies about him stealing souls pissing him off also made him far more sympathetic, if not necessarily good.}} Also, he has style. And admits that the sunset is fantastic. [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]
** [[Neil Gaiman]] tends to portray Lucifer's Fall as all part of God's plan in his works. Albeit a plan poor Lucifer was never let in on...
* The [[Satan]] figure of [[J.
* In ''Crimson'', Satan is the only one of the angels who maintains a close relationship with God. It's implied that the other angels have become so full of themselves that they can't recognize God for who he really is. God and Satan have creative differences but team up to manipulate the other angels into achieving mutual goals for each other.
* In ''[[Proposition Player]]'', Hell Mary points out that the "other side" rushed their book through production without letting her side make a point for them, and asks Joey if he could really picture his friends in heaven, kowtowing to the big guy and trying to outdo each other at telling Him how great he is. She is also savvy enough to level with Joey and, later, {{spoiler|switches allegiance and joins his group when he decides to become a big player.}} Her celestial counterpart, meanwhile, is a huge jerk who alternately tries to buy off the souls or threaten Joey passive-agressively, and makes no secret of what a misogynistic, power-abusing, sociopathic asshole he is. (He also doesn't realize that intimidation doesn't work on a cynical bastard like Joey.)
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*** Probably just magic. And Satan didn't hate him, Satan knew nothing about him. As The Accountant says when one of his cult claims alleigance with Satan: "Funny, he's never mentioned you."
**** [[Word of God]] says there is nothing supernatural aside from Cage and the Accountant. The cult leader is just a madman. The human sacrifice would have got him nothing.
* ''[[Cecil B. Demented]]'', if his resident booster, Raven, is any indication, Satan Is Love!
* In ''[[The Prophecy (
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** They pretty much just took the rites and litany of their [[Corrupt Church]] and switched all the names and references around. Hence, their religious practices bear little resemblance to those commonly associated with Satanists in the media; the entire name is arguably a joke masquerading as a religion.
* The sixth book of Piers Anthony's [[Incarnations of Immortality]] series, ''For Love of Evil'' is based entirely on this trope, combined with a [[Perspective Flip]] from the previous 5 books.
* Lucifer is the main character of Catherine Webb's ''Waywalkers'' duet, and is a bastard son of Time and Magic and [[Blessed
* Not surprisingly, given its very anti-religious theme, the Adversary in the ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' trilogy is described as an extremely sympathetic figure - the leader of the rebel army of angels that attempted to overthrow the Authority (who was simply the oldest being, and only CLAIMED to be the creator to legitimize bossing everyone else around) in aeons past.
** Well, the character who was the leader of the fallen/rebel angels is the angel Xaphania, and she is pretty much still going around in the universes; needless to say she's wise and "good". Lord Asriel (named after the angel of death) fits the role better, but his [[Knight Templar]] status makes him occasionally quite unsympathetic, {{spoiler|specially in the end of the first book, where he considers his goal more important than the life of his daughter's friend, Roger}}. Arguably, Metatron is also similar in role to Satan, having taken over from [[God Is Evil|The Authority]] after being his right-hand angel, but he is clearly evil (and used to be a human).
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* In ''[[Fifth Business]]'', the Devil figure in the story ends up being an intelligent and charming woman who helps the most in the main character's quest of discovering who he is. As he says later, "The Devil turned out to be a very good fellow."
* In Timothy Findley's ''Not Wanted on the Voyage'', Satan is {{spoiler|a seven-foot-tall angel. In drag. Who goes by Lucy.}} And Satan's far, far, far better of a character and person than Noah and his ilk.
* Several of Neil Gaiman's works, including ''[[
* Peter Ustinov's (yes, the actor) novel ''The Old Man and Mr. Smith'' had God and Satan as best friends, traveling the countryside. Satan (Mr. Smith) tended to commit minor offenses, such as stealing, that bothered God (The Old Man) a bit, but it was always just to help out, and The Old Man couldn't deny that he directly benefited from Mr. Smith's pragmatic approach to problem-solving.
* Shan-wei is the [[Safehold|Safeholdian]] Church of God Awaiting's equivalent of Satan. However, what only a select few know is that Pei Shan-wei was an actual person who tried to deflate the [[A God Am I]] ambitions of her fellow "Archangels" Eric Langhorne and Adorée Bédard and was murdered for her trouble.
* According to the Friar's Tale in ''[[
* In Jeff Long's ''Deeper'' Satan is a [[True Neutral]] entity that played a major part in uplifting the humanity to its current status in hopes of releasing himself from a metaphysical confinement beneath the Earth with its aid, but it's implied that if his release would actually happen, he would cause immense destruction without even noticing or caring, like only an immortal being with little experience with human contact could when facing fragile mortals.
* While not quite calling him good [[Mark Twain]] opined in one of his essays that Satan had never gotten a fair trial and deserved to be able to tell his side of the story.
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* In [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s novel ''Timequake'', Kilgore Trout writes a book that has the Devil giving Adam and Eve the apple, because he sincerely wants them to become intelligent.
* In Natalia Vasilieva's ''Black Book of Arda'', Melkor (the Tolkienverse's Satan equivalent) is good.
* [[La Résistance|The Other Light faction]] in the [[Left Behind]] book ''Kingdom Come'' sees [[God Is Evil]] because He won't let "naturals" in the Millennial Kingdom [[Death's Hourglass|live past 100 years of age]] as unbelievers, and claim in their ''If It's True'' manifesto that God has unfairly treated one of His angels (referring to Lucifer) and befouled his name and reputation by casting him out of His presence. To that end, the Other Light worked hard to pass their teachings to the next generation of converts so that the generation that gets to [[Final Battle|confront God and Jesus at the end of the Millennium]] will be "assured victory" when [[Sealed Evil in
* Sammael in [[Storm Constantine]]'s ''[[
* This is the ultimate goal of wizards and the [[Powers That Be]] in the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' universe. The [[Satan|Lone Power]] invented entropy and death, and for these gifts was sent away until he could learn better. Rhiow in ''The Book of Night with Moon'' describes it best:
{{quote| But what time is ''about'', they say, is slowly winning the Lone One back to the right side. When that happens, the Whisperer says— when a billion years' worth of wizards' victories finally wear sa'Rrahh down enough to show her what possibilities can lie beyond her own furious blindness and fixity - then death and entropy will begin to work backward, undoing themselves; evil will transform its own nature and will have no defense against that final transformation, coming as it will from within. The universe will be remade, as if it had been made right from the beginning. ... Every time one of us stands up knowingly to the Devastatrix, she loses a little ground. Every time one of us wins, she loses a little more. And the Whisperer says that the effect is cumulative. No wizard knows whether his or her act today, this minute or the next, might not be the one that will finally make the Lone Power say, 'I give up: joy is easier.' And then the long fall upward into the light, and the rebirth of the worlds, will start...}}
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== Live Action Television ==
* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] on ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': Lucifer would like to convince you that he's the good guy, but he's clearly just an egotistical bastard. At times he'll come off as [[Affably Evil]], but then he'll go and do something that completely averts this, {{spoiler|i.e. killing off an army of demons (his children) to summon Death, exploding Castiel, snapping Bobby's neck, beating the living crap out of Dean (while wearing Sam's body!) etcetera, etcetera.}} Then again, on this show, [[Crapsack World|no higher power can possibly be good]].
* The Devil as presented in ''[[Brimstone (TV series)|Brimstone]]'' wasn't necessarily evil. In fact he was in charge of punishing evildoers, hence his need to get the 113 escapees back to hell. He was, however, an unrepentant [[Jerkass]].
* The Devil of ''[[The Collector (TV series)|The Collector]]'', [[Omniscient Morality License|or so he claims]].
* A recurring bit on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'''s "Weekend Update" features them inviting the Devil on to discuss something heinous in the news, only to [[Even Evil Has Standards|refuse to take credit]] on hearing the act actually ''described''.
== Music ==
* Not outright stating it, but [[Running Wild (
* Voltaire's "Almost Human" is, essentially, the Devil's lament about being cast from heaven and being constantly despised by angels (or [[The Fundamentalist]]; it's not exactly clear), despite being basically [[Not So Different|the same as humanity]].
* Despite the song's title, "Sympathy for the Devil" portrays Satan as an arrogant and malevolent presence who haunts all of humanity's great atrocities. Though there is an [[Aesop]] in there about how these evils are really the fault of humans.
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** There's also [[wikipedia:Theistic Satanism|Traditional Satanism]], which does believe in a literal Satan. Their view is that Satan is the one who really wants what's best for them, or that he simply wants them to think for themselves (most well-known example being the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil).
* There was a group called the [[wikipedia:Luciferianism|Luciferians]] that was persecuted by the Catholic Church as a heretical sect during the Middle Ages. As with this trope, the Luciferians believed that eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil was a positive thing, and that Lucifer was the noble Creator opposing an evil and repressive god who had better press. They never worshiped evil or performed dark sacrificial rituals the way Satanists in contemporary and modern media were/are supposed to do. There are also modern day Luciferians who believe the same thing.
* In [[Classical Mythology]], Prometheus subversively gives the gods' protected knowledge of fire to humanity, not unlike the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil offered by the evil serpent in [[The Bible]]. When the myth first appeared in [[Hesiod]]'s ''[[
** The suffering of humanity was blamed on [[Schmuck Bait|Pandora]], not Prometheus.
* The god [[Lusitanian Mythology|Endovelicus]] became identified as Lucifer after Christianity became dominant on the Iberian Peninsula, but he was already quite established as a benevolent god in the native pantheon.
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== Radio ==
* The Satan of ''[[Old Harry's Game
* Ghost, from [[
== Tabletop Games ==
* In White Wolf's ''[[
* Some ''[[
* ''[[
** In third ed, the Angels love beauty and justice, but only the Devils love ''everything''. For daring to stand up for the monstrous, the wicked, and the corrupt, the Angels cast the Devils into Hell.
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* The tenth ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' game, ''Radiant Dawn'', also played with this. The role of God was taken by the Goddess of Order, Ashera, while Satan was depicted as the Goddess of Chaos, Yune. Neither goddess are [[Chaotic Neutral|truly good or bad]] (and are actually two parts to a whole), but ancient propaganda had Yune portrayed as a "dark goddess", although this was actually for a noble, albeit misguided, purpose to preserve ethnic and political relations. It doesn't last, and when Ashera decides to pass judgment on the world and turns humanity into stone, it's Yune, long depicted as the "dark goddess", [[Dark Is Not Evil|who assists the heroes to save the world]].
* Satan is {{spoiler|the protagonist himself}} and son of a Prometheus stand-in in ''[[Tears to Tiara]]''. The angels are a bunch of jerkasses.
* The land of [[The Verse|Ivalice]] in ''[[
** Ivalice has it both ways, with two Satan counter-parts. One of them is the above mentioned Venat, whose strives to free the mortal characters from The Occuria, but the other is the esper Ultima, who rebelled against them out of pride, and ends up {{spoiler|trying to take over Ivalice}} in Final Fantasy Tactics.
* In [[The Elder Scrolls]] franchise, many of the religions share more than a few similarities in the origins of Nirn. What may be Lorkhan, a fallen god in the Elven pantheon that deceived all the other gods into creating the world, may be Shor, the champion of all mortals in the Nordic pantheon. Given that Lorkhan's importance varies between the pantheons, this overlaps with [[God Is Evil]].
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [[Satan]] is portrayed as a cute and generally nice young woman in the webcomic ''[[
* Satan in ''[[Boy Meets Boy]]'' is, at worst, [[Affably Evil]]. The same goes for her daughter, the main characters' landlady.
* In his brief appearance in ''[[The Non
* The Devil figure in ''[[Jack (
* Not exactly good but in ''The Devil's Panties'' Satan comes across more as an [[Affably Evil]] [[Punch Clock Villain]] than really evil. In later strips there is a demon simply called "The Devil" who is a childish [[Cloudcuckoolander]] and is more mischievous than outright evil.
* K's [[Louis Cypher|Uncle Luc]] in [http://blipcomic.com/index.php Blip] appears, for all intents and purposes, to be Lucifer. But he's very polite, and visits her in her dreams to teach her art, music, literature and the like. He seems to be in conflict of some kind with Heavenly forces, but since those forces are conspiring to crush K's artistic potential, he comes across as a genuinely helpful fellow. K is the titular "blip" in god's plan, and her very existence threatens to [[Butterfly of Doom|alter the future in unpredictable ways]], so it remains to be seen whether Luc's true intentions are good or bad, but it's easy to sympathize with him when his "crime" involves making one girl's life less miserable.
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== Western Animation ==
* Satan in ''[[
{{quote| '''Satan''': Thanks, God. I forgot how clear you made things.<br />
'''God''': It was good to see you again, Satan. }}
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** God points out in the aforementioned episode that Satan's gone through quite a bit of [[Villain Decay]] to get here.
{{quote| '''God:''' ...Jesus, what the hell happened to you? [[Badass Decay|You got kicked outta here for being a head-strong rebel, and now you're a whiny little bitch]].}}
* There's Satan in ''[[Lucy, the Daughter of
{{quote| "Driving to bur-ning man! Driving to bur-ning man!"}}
* In the short-lived series ''[[God, the Devil
** That being said, he still is presented as evil, if [[Affably Evil|somewhat affably]] so.
* Robot Devil in ''[[
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