The Ninth Gate/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance: After the end of the movie, you realize that The Girl is the Devil and has chosen Corso for the gift of the power since the beginning. Alternate interpretation: Corso is actually Satan and has undergone a Xanatos Roulette and Memory Gambit to return to heaven. The book is supposed to "raise the devil" and so it does, by showing him the way back home.
- There's another possible interpretation of the film (though not necessarily the book), in that the Ninth Gate really had nothing to do with Satan. According to this theory, the "Lucifer" referred to as the author of the Delomelanicon referred to the name's literal translation of "Lightbringer," and not the demon of Christian mythology. The engravings serve as a map of consciousness, not unlike the Kabbalah, and lead down two separate paths, one a path of greed and self destruction which ends in flames, and the other, a true path to enlightenment. Aristide Torchia (and by extension, all those who interpret the material as Satanic) follows the negative path and dies as a result. Dean Corso somehow ends up on the right path, and achieves transcendence. A much more detailed explanation can be found here
Fridge Logic: Considering Corso and the other characters are all experts on rare books, why does Corso never wear any sort of hand protection when examining them and is allowed to drink and smoke near them? The Baroness is the only one who seems to be annoyed by such behavior, rightfully so.
- - The books being laid out on the floor in Fargas' mansion was actually taken from the source novel. Not that it necessarily makes it better....
  - Books during the era were printed on extremely heavy paper or vellum, not mere pulp, with bone spines (hence the name "spine") and leather covers, smoking and drinking near them is probably the lightest they were treated in their entire life.
- Why are they speaking Spanish in Portugal, anyway?
The Ninth Gate had everyone I know making that noise Scooby-Doo makes when he's confused. And sometime later, the ending hit me: The girl was Satan herself, and Korso had found the ninth gate and used it. --User:Indigo
- She is very unambiguously Satan in the book on which the film is based, El Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte.
- What I got from the film was that Korso was an amnesiac Satan and the girl was a witch or demon who was trying to guide him to the ninth gate. --Vashthe Stampede
My dad loved the movie, then one evening randomly invited me to watch it with him. He'd seen it several times, but had never noticed that the last carving/illustration Korso discussed or examined was foreshadowing. (example- Korso examines the carving that resembles the Tarot card The Hanged Man, and then goes back to his shop to find his friend dead and dangling from his ankle, in the same pose as the picture.) I thought it was pretty obvious, but then again, my dad is kind of thick when it comes to anything that isn't math-based. -Timber!
- What really made this sink in for me is how Balkan says in the beginning how using the proper text will cause the Prince of Darkness to appear in person. As soon as Balkan puts the pages in the correct order at the castle he looks up... and Korso is standing right there.
- I assumed the girl would be satan from the start knowing Roman Polanski had cast his own wife and his general obsession with making movies about the devil. Read the book later, it's far more obvious in the book than the film.--bluebrainfreezy
- There's another possible interperetation of the film (though not necessarily the book) in that the ninth gate really had nothing to do with Satan. According to this theory, the "Lucifer" referred to as the author of the delomelanocon referred to the name's literal translation of "Lightbringer," and not the demon of Christian mythology. The engravings serve as a map of consciousness, a la the Kaballah, and lead down two separate paths, one a path of greed and self destruction which ends in flames, and the other, a true path to enlightenment. Aristide Torchia (and by extension, all those who interperet the material as Satanic) follows the negative path and dies as a result. Dean Corso somehow ends up on the right path, and achieves transendance.