#TwistedTropes 19. Lucifer's idiotic fall

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They say pride comes before a fall. But this wasn't just a fall. It was a catastrophic misjudgement that led to the most spectacular downfall in history.

Lucifer, the first and greatest prince of the angelic hosts, oversteps the mark, and discovers that he's not too high and mighty for a good spanking. But there is no trial by TV interview, or questioning from the FBI for this errant prince. Lucifer is suddenly and dramatically out. As quick as that. But what was it he did to deserve such a rapid eviction?

Lucifer starts out as a beautiful being of light, 'the shining one', the 'son of the morning', even better looking than George Clooney. He is God's most impressive creation, but then he becomes too proud and believes he is greater than his creator. He challenges God for supremacy and ends up crashing down to earth, all burnt and twisted.

It's probably the most idiotic thing Lucifer could have done, and there is no opportunity for redemption. God (who probably bears a passing resemblance to Morgan Freeman) unceremoniously casts him out, Lucifer's power goes down the toilet, and now he has nothing to contemplate but a fiery end (Is this a curry joke? - Editor). Now lower than a snake's belly, he becomes the 'desolate one' aka Stan (I think this is a typo - Editor).

So what does he do? Bitter and angry, Lucifer decides that if he's going to fall, he'll take as many with him as he can. His pride has now been transformed into spite and revenge. So he starts by making sure that a third of all the angels follow him, and like his status updates. They become 'demons' and they serve him as he attempts to overthrow his creator. He doesn't have a hope in Hell, of course. You can't fight against God.

Challenging the supreme being was a stupid decision to make. Lucifer had the world at his feet but he decided it wasn't enough. He wanted to be the greatest and the best and that meant trying to rise above his creator. He found out that yes, pride does come before a fall. And now there's hell to pay.

Epilogue: Take care not to become so full of pride yourself that you lose your perspective. What you have right now may seem less than you might wish, but at least it's yours. Don't be impulsive and lose what you already have by reaching for something that isn't within your grasp. And don't be so arrogant that you become unteachable. If it all goes wrong, you don't know just how far you might fall.

Next time: 20. Adam's poisoned apple

Previous posts in the #TwistedTropes series
1. Pavlov's drooling dog
2. Chekhov's smoking gun
3. Occam's bloody razor
4. Schrödinger’s undead cat
5. Pandora's closed box
6. Frankenstein's well-meaning monster
7. Thor's lost hammer
8. Noah's character ark
9. Hobson's multiple choice
10. Fibonacci's annoying sequence
11. Sod's unlucky law
12. Dante's lukewarm inferno
13. Plato's empty cave
14. Aladdin's miserly lamp
15. Batman's tangled cape
16. Cupid's bent arrow
17. Fermat's dodgy last theorem
18. Moore's obsolete law


Lucifer's idiotic fall by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Posted by Steve Wheeler from Learning with e's