Lucifer

Gentlebrand Wine Features Illustrations of The Divine Comedy

December 31, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

“Gentlebrand will mark the 700^th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death with a special edition wine range, called Curtai, which features illustrations on the packaging to take consumers on ‘a journey to discover The Divine Comedy.'”

“Curtai will include three different wines to symbolize the three realms visited in Dante’s infamous work – Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise – and acknowledge the number’s frequent presence in the author’s verses. The wines themselves are intended as a journey through the traditional tastes of wines local to the Friuli region in north-eastern Italy; the name Curtis is reportedly linked to the Friulian dialect.” [. . .] —Packaging Europe, December 2, 2021

Kefka – Final Fantasy VI

September 6, 2020 By lsanchez

Kefka, entrapped in ice at the waist, is the final boss in Square’s 1994 video game Final Fantasy VI.

Learn more about Final Fantasy VI here.

Lou’s Inferno – Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

September 3, 2020 By lsanchez

“Lou’s Inferno is located in the Rock Underworld (revealed after you play through Story Mode) and is a very large room with Thick Izzy sitting on a throne behind the drummer. During a song, he will hit his hammer against the floor if your Rock Meter is in the green level as if rocking out to the music. To the left of the band (the right side of the stage from the crowd’s point of view) is a relatively small fire in a chimney. On the opposite side of the stage is a much larger fire. In front of the stage, a large crowd of people, possibly demons (in this case meaning people who have died and been sentenced to Hell, or, possibly, souls of people collected by Lou or Grim Ripper) has gathered to watch the show. All around the venue, there are red, horned women dancing. It’s basically the Guitar Hero version of Hell.” —WikiHero, February 19, 2018

Learn more about Neversoft’s 2007 video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock here.

The Sandman and Dante’s Inferno

August 26, 2020 By lsanchez

“The angelic appearance of Lucifer in Sandman #4 (April 1989), entitled ‘A Hope in Hell,’ features the Wood of Suicides from Dante’s Inferno (Canto XIII), the great expanse of which provokes comment from the titular character as he seemingly accidentally breaks a branch and allows the suicides, imprisoned in the form of barren trees, to speak. Despite this, the issue and The Sandman in general have more to do with previous DC comics than with Dante. Indeed, the issue features Etrigan, a colorful rhyming demon created by Jack Kirby for the inventively titled comic The Demon. At the issue’s conclusion, Lucifer swears Dream’s destruction, a move by writer Neil Gaiman to establish plot threads for subsequent issues.

[. . .]

Perhaps the inconsistency of Gaiman’s three versions of Lucifer should not surprise us. After all, Satan has always been a particularly malleable figure, changing even in his religious depictions over time. Huge gulfs exists between the serpent of Genesis, the prosecuting angel in Job, the Bible’s brief and vague references to a fallen angel, and the vaguely Manichean personification of evil in the New Testament, who were not even intended to be the same characters and were only united by exegetic interpretation. Equally, Dante’s bloated, immobile Satan is a world away from Milton’s deft, self-damned, self-hated rhetorical master.

In other words, Gaiman’s three Lucifers may not be consistent, but then, Lucifer never was.” –Julian Darius, Sequart Organization, May 20, 2002

Dante’s Inferno Video Game 10 Years Later

August 8, 2020 By lsanchez

“Released back in 2010 by Visceral Games – the lovely folks who brought us Dead Space – Dante’s Inferno is a creative adaptation of the classic poem. Through its incredible design, gameplay, and narrative, Dante’s Inferno has come to be one of the most exhilarating action games of the 2010s.

For the sake of presenting a more action-driven story, Visceral went ahead and made a few changes to the source material. Whereas Dante is a poet and Beatrice is a symbol of Divine Love in the poem, the former is a soldier and the latter is his lover in the game.

The story begins with Dante during the Third Crusade (1189–1192). In the midst of combat, he is all of a sudden stabbed; he awakens on another plane having to confront the physical embodiment of death. After defeating death, Dante steals his scythe and returns home – only to find his father and love Beatrice dead. This is when Dante discovers the latter’s soul being dragged to Hell by Lucifer. From there, along with his guide Virgil (just like in the poem), Dante transverses through Hell to save his love (laying waste to every demon in his path).

[. . .]

Ten years later and I’m still amazed by this game. From its fantastic action and creative approach to the source material, Dante’s Inferno is a fascinating title. Inferno proved to be a visual treat to me when I first read it; never could I have ever expected how Visceral Games could take such a classic and elevate its imagery. Dante’s Inferno is not only an amazing action game, but it’s also an excellent journey into one of the most nightmarish representations of Hell ever depicted in art.” –Michael Pementel, Bloody Disgusting, February 4, 2020

“The 2010 video game, Dante’s Inferno, is a modern adaptation of the original Inferno by Dante Alighieri. While it has some similarities, it has some predominant substantial differences. Some of the similarities come with the characters, and the ambience. Most of the emblematic characters of the original text appear in the video game in one way or another. The ambience is also quite accurate since it clearly conveys Dante’s ideas on the various levels of hell. Every single circle of hell shows the punishment addressed to the various sinners. However, the substantial difference resides in the main mission of the story. Unlike the original, in the video game Dante’s main objective is to set Beatrice free from Lucifer. God is barely mentioned throughout the game, or any other phase besides hell. Dante does not consider getting to any places beyond hell.” –Pablo Linares (University of Arkansas, ’23)

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