The Divine Comedy: Difference between revisions
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*** There is an actual critical debate if the group in which Dante places his mentor (Brunetto Latini) is where homosexuals are punished or if it's for pedophiles. Sodomy was in fact a common "contracepting technique" in the middle ages (it is noted by famous Dante scholar Vittorio Sermonti), and it would be unlikely that Dante punishes the act of sodomy in that circle. Moreover, when Dante asks his mentor to name some other fellow sinners, he enumerates only clergymen and literates, indicating a sort of "master-student" relationship issue.
** Gay people also appear in Purgatory's circle of lust, running in the opposite direction from the rest of the crowd. So either way, [[Space Whale Aesop|if you're gay, you're going to spend a lot of time jogging when you die]].
* [[But Now I Must Go]]: Virgil embodies the concept of Reason, and as such, he is a perfect guide for Dante through Hell and Purgatory. But when they reach Heaven, Reason alone is no longer sufficient, so Virgil leaves Dante in the care of Beatrice.
* [[Can Not Tell a Lie]]: You certainly can't in front of [[The Judge|Minos]]. Sinners who approach him are compelled to confess their sins, whereupon he throws them into the part of Hell where they belong.
* [[Centaurs]]: Depicted as jailers of the 6th layer of Hell. Nessus himself ferries Dante and Virgil across the River Phlegethon.
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* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Virgil. In one of the upper layers of Hell, Dante asks him if true perfection can exist if sinners are so horribly punished. Virgil's reply is, to paraphrase, "they are given the perfect punishments". This is also his way of saying, "it's going to get much worse from here."
* [[The Devil Is a Loser]]: Some readers and critics have noted that Satan is one of the least colourful villains of the whole ''Inferno'', but this was actually deliberate.
* [[Did Not Do the Research]]:
*
** And let's not forget all the Protestants who think the circles of hell are ''canon''. To which we can also add [[Faust|deals with Satan]] and [[Paradise Lost|Satan's fall for not worshipping man]].
** Also, readers often assume that Beatrice was based on Dante's wife, lover, or someone he tried to court, and his own words in the epic do little to dissuade this. In truth, the real Dante and Beatrice saw each other twice in their lives, the first time when he was 9 years old and the second when he was 18. If anything, he was basing the fictional Beatrice on a [[Precocious Crush]]. Ironically, Dante did indeed lose his actual wife - her name was [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Gemma_Donati Gemma Donati] - along with most of his wealth and property when he was banished from Florence, his anger and contempt towards the city's rulers being the biggest reason he wrote the work to begin with.
* [[Don't Celebrate Just Yet]]: Dante's initial goal is to find Beatrice, but once he finds her, his quest is not yet over. She is the one who must guide him as he explores the glory of Heaven.
* [[Empathic Environment]]: When the [[Corrupt Church]] is discussed in Heaven, the sky turns dark and reddish, as if the whole cosmos is ashamed of how the true religion has been perverted.
* [[The Everyman]]: "Midway through the journey of ''our'' life..."
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* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: One might think that The Inferno is chock full of these, but the ones who ''really'' have it bad are the ones trapped in Hell's Vestibule—The Opportunists. As they never took sides between good and evil in life, so is their fate in death. They're not actually a part of Hell, and they have no chance at redemption. They just have one small place to be tormented for eternity alone by themselves.
* [[Fantasy World Map]]: Diagrams of Hell and Purgatory are featured in many translations; some fine ones can be found [http://www.worldofdante.org/maps_main.html here].
* [[Fire and Brimstone Hell]]: Some parts of Hell are like this, but the ''worst'' parts of it [[Evil Is Deathly Cold|are deathly cold]].
* [[Flipping the Bird]]: ...or the equivalent of that time: One damned soul curses God and gives Him "the figs"<ref>a clenched fist with the thumb sticking out between the index and middle fingers, simulating female genetalia</ref> with both hands.
* [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]]: Often depicted as such in illustrations; the actual "landscape" of Paradise is a bit vaguely described.
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* [[Historical Villain Upgrade]]: Exactly who is in Hell and who isn't depends on Dante's opinion of them, and quite a few are not regarded as especially evil by modern readers. For instance, the biggest example may be Brutus, Judas Iscariot and Cassius depicted as the ultimate traitors, being gnawed upon by Satan for eternity. Judas being there is understandable (being the betrayer of Christ) but Dante considered the assassination of Julius Caesar, the crime committed by the other two, to be the second-worst crime ever committed, as it represented the destruction of a unified Italy and the killing of the man who was divinely appointed to govern the world. Again, this is Dante's personal opinion.
* [[In the Past Everyone Will Be Famous]]: Everyone in the afterlife is either a well-known historical figure or someone who would be familiar to Dante's readers. It gets a [[Justified Trope|justification]] as Dante's guides point out these exemplary figures. They also usually have more important places in Heaven or more picturesque punishments in Hell. There are some exceptions, though—the hoarders and spenders, for instance, are so featureless that they can barely be distinguished from each other, and Dante does pause to talk with a nameless Florentine suicide.
* [[Intimidating Revenue Service]]: Dante clearly hated paying taxes as much as the next guy; the poem places debt collectors in the same level of Hell as suicides and mass-murderers. Landlords who charged unreasonable rates are there too.
* [[Ironic Hell]]: A quite famous one at that.
* [[Kick the Son of a Bitch]]: At one point while in the Cocito, Dante pulls a traitor's hair in order to force him to tell his story, going so far as to actually tear out handfuls of hair when the shade stubbornly refuses to say anything.
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* [[Single Tear]]: A soldier Dante meets in Purgatory was put there instead of Hell because he shed a single tear before dying.
* [[Snicket Warning Label]]: Some early verses in the ''Paradiso'' warn readers not to continue further if they are not ready to deal with the complex theology discussed therein. Most people who end up reading it regret not taking the warning more seriously and end up with a headache, and left very confused.
* [[Star Scraper]]: Purgatory is a giant mountain on the world's southern hemisphere, its peak as far from the Earth's surface as the surface is to the center of the Earth.
* [[Sympathy for the Devil]]: Although Dante has nothing but contempt for Satan and his minions, he often shows feelings of empathy, pity, and even respect for several sinners he meets in Hell. Virgil sometimes tells Dante off for this. After all, if an omniscient and all-loving God has decided they're not worth pity, why should anyone go against divine will and feel sorry for them?
* [[Take Our Word for It]]: At the end of ''Paradiso'', this is how Dante describes God. Anything else would have been underwhelming.
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* [[Tears of Remorse]]
* [[Tender Tears]]
* [[The Reason You Suck Speech]]: Pope Nicholas III is someone the nonfictional Dante ''really'' hated, as he blamed him for starting the church's trend of offering salvation in exchange for money. No surprise then, that he really tells Nicholas off when he meets him in the Eighth Circle, a layer where all the sinners' crimes are a type of fraud.
** But he seems to hate folks who ''steal'' from churches even more, giving a more severe scolding to an unrepentant thief who did exactly that.
* [[Thicker Than Water]]
* [[This Loser Is You]]:
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* [[Toilet Humour]]:
** One of the Malebranche "makes a trumpet of his ass" as a salute to his fellow demons.
** The flatterers in the second Bolgia are [[Urine Trouble|immersed in shit.]] This is a part that modern readers might agree find fitting - these sinners would spout bullshit get what they wanted in life, so they are ''literally'' buried in bullshit in the afterlife!
* [[Wish Fulfillment]]: Seeing as he gets to beat up people he doesn't like in Hell, confronts Satan, meets the woman he fell in love with during her life and be saved by her, sees ''God Himself'', and transcends the mortal realm forever. The real kicker is that it's actually pulled off fairly well as far as self-inserts go. See [[Author Avatar]] above.
* [[Wounded Gazelle Warcry]]: Helen of Troy in hell can be interpreted as having been this trope in life, rather than the passive object of desire she was in [[The Iliad]]: Dante gives her the full blame for the Trojan War, as if she got herself kidnapped by the Trojan prince on purpose in order to give her own nation an excuse to invade Troy.
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