The Devil Is a Loser: Difference between revisions

[[File:sinfestloserdevil 1374.png|link=Sinfest|frame|Keep telling yourself that.]]

 

 

Some shows make [[Satan|the Devil]] into an evil badass—the kind of person who'd have no qualms about crushing someone mercilessly and [[Evil Is Cool|looking damn cool]] while doing it.

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{{examples}}

* Neron in ''Underworld Unleashed'' loses because Captain Marvel's soul is too pure.

** Neron gets to keep most of the evil souls he's taken, however, including Lex Luthors and the Jokers. They don't want them, anyway.

* Mephisto used to be the Marvel Universe's butt monkey. ''[[One More Day]]'' actually did a bit to reverse his [[Villain Decay]].

* Loki in the [[Thor]] comics tends to be this as well.

* Subverted by [[Sandman]] Lucifer. He's the only one to really break the cycle.

 

 

** To be fair, Dr. Satan is not Satan himself, just some nerdy guy styled after him.

 

* Another Loser Devil shows up in the [[Eoin Colfer]] novel ''[[The Wish List]]''.

* The devil takes the form of an emaciated, impoverished down-on-his-luck country gentleman in ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]''. He also seems pretty resigned to be being blamed for all of mankind's ills. Not suave or sophisticated at all, but still capable of causing the occasional ''[[Heroic BSOD]]''.

** Although he claims to take this form to mess with Ivan's sense of self-importance.

* Lewis also creates a different loser devil in ''[[The Screwtape Letters]]''. Screwtape is a grumpy old demon with [[No Sense of Humor]], whose list of things he can't stand about Heaven includes God's disgusting, hedonistic ''love'' for His physical creations, not to mention His habit of playing music at all hours of the night. Silence is no improvement, as Screwtape prefers some good, loud, decently ugly ''noise''.

* This is half the point of ''The Devil's Storybook'' and ''The Devil's Other Storybook'', both by Jane Yolen. The other half is how he still wins as often as he loses.

* ''[[Left Behind]]'' has the devil as pretty incompetent.

** To the point where he becomes sympathetic solely because of how badly he gets beaten.

* Torak of ''[[The Belgariad]]'' and Azash of ''[[The Elenium]]''. Both are incredibly powerful in physical/magical terms, but they're also crippled, handicapped by an inability to change, stupid, and totally unable to understand human emotions, which ultimately results in both their downfalls.

 

* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', Caleb, right-hand man to the First Evil, refers to Satan as a "little man" (at least, compared to his boss).

* One ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sketch features a musician making a [[Deal with the Devil]] only to discover that Satan is a phenomenally crappy songwriter.

{{quote|''"Would you please stop that?"''}}

* On an episode of ''[[X-Play]]'' about the time a ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' expansion came out, Morgan apparently made a deal with the devil to have him level up her character. Unfortunately, the Devil apparently sucks at ''WoW''.

 

* The song "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band portrays Satan as "way behind" on his quota for souls. In desperation, he makes a bet with Johnny, a local Georgia fiddle player, to a fiddling contest. Though Satan is portrayed as a pretty badass dude, he's no match for a good ole Georgia boy and gets beaten handily. Johnny freely gloats and insults the devil throughout the song and ultimately snags his shiny golden fiddle.

** It has been pondered that Satan lost the battle but won the war by making Johnny fall prey to greed and pride.

* Then of course there is the [[Trope Namer]] itself, which is [[Lordi]]'s song ''The Devil Is A Loser'', as quoted above. The song ridicules someone for making a [[Deal with the Devil]]... because they were stupid enough to make a deal with someone that pathetic.

* The song "War is my Destiny" by rapper Ill Bill describes the fallen angels who served Satan during the rebellion as promptly dethroning him after they were cast from Heaven for his failure to deliver on his promises. A new Devil is crowned in his place. Satan later manages to somewhat redeem himself in their eyes after the Biblical Flood by coming up with a plan to corrupt mankind by manipulating them through the word of God.

* "The Number of the Beast" by [[Iron Maiden]] was perceived by some to out the band as Satan worshipers... the song itself plays out like a horror movie (it was inspired by ''[[The Omen]]''). However, the "Run to the Hills" single artwork has Eddie, Maiden's zombie mascot, in a fight with the devil. The Number of the Beast album shows the aftermath, Eddie holding the Devil's decapitated head. Maiden rightfully pointed out that they were not encouraging worshiping the Devil as he was the LOSER in the battle.

 

 

** [[Bellisario's Maxim|It's folklore, don't think too hard about it.]]

* In [[Mormonism]] the Devil is the loser of the war in heaven. Basically, it boils down into different versions of the Plan of Eternal Salvation. Lucifer's plan involved everyone not having free will, guaranteed entry into heaven, and the glory for all of that belonging to himself since it was his plan. Jesus wanted everyone to have free will even though it meant that yes, there will be sinners and evil people, as well all the people going into heaven [[Earn Your Happy Ending|deserving it for trying act ethically over the course of their lifetime]] and all the glory going to God because God enabled it and [[The Chessmaster|probably had it all in mind anyways]]. Lucifer eventually becomes Satan, stewing in Outer Darkness (Hell) and trying to upset the Plan of Eternal Salvation at every chance he can get. Which, of course, [[Too Dumb to Live|helps to enable the entire thing]].

** The Devil is still treated as a very dangerous character. Yeah, he's lost, but his goal shifted from elevating himself above God by forcing humanity into salvation, [[Omnicidal Maniac|to taking as many souls down with him as he can.]]

* Generally, if you read Medieval folklore about the Devil, he will usually be presented as a diminutive, ugly and stupid, easily tricked by ordinary peasants on a daily basis. The more powerful, imposing Devil only started emerging during the Reformation period when religion went from a fairly laid back routine back to [[Serious Business]].

 

 

* The Ebon Dragon, from ''[[Exalted]]''. He's basically the [[Satan|Devil-figure]] of the setting, the master of betrayal, lies, and deceit, and the only one of the [[Eldritch Abomination|Yozis]] who operates on [[Card-Carrying Villain|standard human morality]]...but see [[Word of God]]'s explanation for exactly why ''his'' villainy is represented not by [[Above Good and Evil|alternative]] [[Ubermensch|interpretations]] of the Virtue system, but merely by having bad Virtue scores:

{{quote|"The Dragon's evil is supposed to be pathetic. It's supposed to be contemptible. That doesn't make him weak, but he's not heroic in either a classical or contemporary sense. He's a force of evil without scruples or principles. He stands for nothing save making things worse for everyone. He will stab you in the back at every turn and he cannot be reformed. ... When you face the Dragon, having Virtues greater than him, you can look down on him. You can see that he's not simply different or alien, but a loser. And yet, losers can win. He's a smart loser, a cunning loser. He's a loser unfettered by any moral restraint holding him back from hurting you any way he can get away with. He cheats. He cheats very well. He might just win. But it won't be a heroic victory. To make it so would miss the point. He's giving the finger to all the humanists and transhumanists and alien weirdos. He says you all suck. But the truth is that he just sucks compared with all of you and on some level, he knows it. I said there were two bad things that alternative Virtue did as a model for the Dragon's wickedness. The second is that you give him an excuse. Oh, he runs from fighting? Actually, he's just smart enough to duck out when he's losing. It's all very reasonable, you see. No. Wrong. He's a coward who bolts in terror from the heroes and lies to himself and others about why he did it. Even if he can make himself stay as an act of antagonistic defiance, he can't make himself stop being terrified. He can't escape into the Other. He's stuck playing in the same moral sandbox as everyone else and he absolutely fails at it."}}

 

* In Antonin Dvorak's opera ''The Devil and Kate'', the sheer bitchiness of the chatterbox Kate is such that even Lucifer is afraid of her, and is willing to do anything in order to send her back to Earth.

 

* Satan in ''[[Saints Row: Gat out of Hell]]''. Sure, [[Evil Is Hammy| he's hammy]], he's funny, he's got a ''marvelous'' singing voice, and [[Evil Is Cool| he's awesome as a character]], but as a boss and the King of Hell, well... He's just not a very good one, [[Anticlimax Boss| and pretty easy to beat.]]

 

* The Devil from ''[[Dinosaur Comics]]'' spends all his time talking to T-Rex about video games and internet slang. And he drinks grape juice from concentrate.

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Satan is the victim of cyber attacks by Riff, ends up doing the nasty with a cat while drunk, and gets chewed out on a daytime talk show for not taking care of the resulting demonic kitten children.

 

* Once faced with Tennyo and Generator in the story "Sit In" in the [[Whateley Universe]], the demon lord (okay, brevet under-baron) Phesclangorenthal rapidly turns into this.

* Discussed by [[Moviebob]], he believes that when you take away all the stories and rumours, the devil is less [[Lex Luthor]], and more Starscream.

 

** Notably, he's referred to as the devil only in the first show's pilot (in which his "[[Evil Plan]]" is to make Chicken smoke cigarettes).

* On ''[[South Park]]'', Satan may look scary, but he's a self-sabotaging abused lover of Saddam Hussein.

* Lucius on ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' is largely a [[Smug Snake]] [[Harmless Villain]] who is incapable of running things without [[Only Sane Employee|Heloise]].

* Played with in ''[[Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil]]'': Satan seems like a harmless yuppie right up until the point where he tries to murder you in your dreams with burrowing flesh-worms.

 

{{reflist}}