how art thou fallen from heaven
Welcome to Lucis Ferre, a semi-blasphemous tribute to the fictional character Lucifer Morningstar from the comic franchise The Sandman by Neil Gaiman and a variety of other artists and writers. The Sandman was a series popular enough to warrant spinoffs for many of the favorite side characters, including the Miltonian representation of Lucifer that first appears in Sandman #4. This Lucifer is not the devil as you know or expect him, but rather, a proud, willful being whose only wish is true independence and freedom. The longest running and, in my opinion, best, spin-off from The Sandman is the eponymous story of Lucifer trying to get his independence from his father. The difference from your typical anti-hero's story, though, is the fact that Lucifer is quite literally going against God.
This page contains unmarked spoilers for both The Sandman and Lucifer, so proceed at your discretion!
o day-star, son of the morning!
Forget everything that you know about Lucifer. Because, really, it's a matter of what you think that you know.
Lucifer is an Angel that rebelled against The Creator, that much is true, and sure, he is the Lord of Hell, but that's about where the truth stops. Lucifer does not tempt people, he doesn't make people do anything, he just sat upon his throne as the Lord of Hell, watching his demons war against each other with an idle boredom. Nothing more, really. He's just doing what his father asked (or, forced) of him.
It's pretty funny, actually, because you could almost paint him as a man rebelling against authority, specifically his father. It just so happens that his father is the ultimate authority. Lucifer, as the third most powerful being in the universe, after only his brother Gabriel and God, has grown accustomed to the control, influence, and power he holds, and would hate to lose it. Yet, in his rebellion, he is not searching for more power. Lucifer is simply searching for the ultimate freedom. He feels as if he's completely subject to God's will, and he wishes to be subject to only his own will, and make decisions on his own and be in control of his own destiny.
This motivation drives him, and while it's a central point of who he is, it's rarely ever displayed for others to see. Instead, people that meet Lucifer meet a charming, suave, handsome bastard. He's more clever than even Loki the Trickster, and while he does not tempt souls, he can easily get them to do his bidding with his mere wit. But, as one character says, Lucifer is a very honest being, even compared to other deities.
"So my theory is that when the Devil wants to get something out of you, he doesn't lie at all. He tells you the exact, literal truth. They used to call the Devil the Father of Lies. But for someone whose sin is meant to be pride, you'd think that lying would leave something of a sour taste. Too easy. Too sleazy. Too much of a coward's tool."
He abides by his own established honor code. He is a man of his word, and always pays back his debts, even those unspoken. That might be because he wants to dispel some of the myths of being who he is, since these myths annoy him. He doesn't mind being thought badly of, obviously, but Lucifer holds truth in high regard. It's not to say that he's above some seemingly underhanded cunning, but if Lucifer were to be your ally, you could have no one better on your side.
Dispelling another myth, Lucifer holds no disdain for any creature as a whole. That's not to say he loves them either. He has developed a kind of indifference to all life. He does not see people as good, bad, human, not-human, whatever. They are only what they are, and he does not hate or judge them for it. You could almost say that he's the ultimate humanist, but it'd be hard to convince anyone of that.
But Lucifer is hardly a good or bad character. He doesn't ally himself with either of those "sides", instead making his own. He has qualities both good and bad, and while some of the myths surrounding the Lightbringer may be incorrect, there are some that are true. He does have all the traits that would come with being who he is. He's an arrogant bastard, and is reluctant to believe any warning against him. Because, well, he's Lucifer. He'll always come out on top. Lucifer has an ego the size of Hell several times over. After all, it's said of all the angels, Lucifer was the wisest, most handsome, and most powerful of them all. He quite likes that distinction too.
how art thou cast down to the ground
These are the characters that have any other relationship with Lucifer other than him being an arrogant ass towards them. There are many peole that he's come to know, but few does he classify as an actual, threatening enemy, and even less as a friend. |
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that didst cast lots over the nations!
And lo! There was Samael, the morning star, and he sayeth, 'Screw this shit!' and in a burst of feathers that blocked the light of a thousand suns, he descended into that place called Hell.
Samael, the Morningstar, the twin brother of Michael, is the angel who gave light to the sun. He is the third most powerful being, after only his brother and their father, Yahweh. Samael was a rebellious angel from the start, but truly thought of independence when he met the rejected first woman, Lilith. Ibriel and Samael were sent to confront her about her sins, and possibly kill her, but after hearing the following from Lilith, Samael decides to leave peacefully:SAMAEL: Why do you do these things, Lilith? You were made for Adam. Why do you soil yourself with demons?While Ibriel fell in love with Lilith, and Lilith bore his child, Samael was fascinated by her intellect and spoke honestly to her. After bearing his child, she offered the Lilim to Ibriel as a work force to build a silver city---Heaven. Together, the Lilim and angels worked together to build the Silver City, but Gabriel convinced Ibriel to forget Lilith. Two Lilim children, overhearing this, kill Ibriel. These children are to be killed in the name of God, but Samael intervenes, pointing out that it's only Gabriel who is speaking. Tired of his servitude to his father, Samael renounces his name to become Lucifer, wanting to seek his own path. Lucifer saved the two Lilim children, and leaves with other rebelious angels to start a war, and his fall from heaven.
LILITH: Why? Because it pleases me, I suppose. I may have been made for Adam, but I live for myself. Which is what living means.
It is during this war that Yahweh reappears, and offers Lucifer a realm of his own to rule, away from God. So, peacefully, Lucifer becomes the Lord of Hell.
O Lucifer, Lord, King, and Prince of Hell, did rule for ten billion years, but filled his plane with demons and the souls that did so stray from his father. But bored was he for so many years of service, and so when Dream came for audience, the Prince renounced his crown once more.
Lucifer ruled over Hell for, as he says, ten billion years. While the demons and fallen creatures that lived in Lucifer's Hell loved their home, and delighted in the endless tortures, Lucifer did not share the same sentiment. He had no interest in torturing souls, and instead ruled his land as a way to be away from his father, and nothing more. However, he soon realized that what he had thought of his position was not actually true. He ruled Hell while still serving Yahweh, which was not what he had meant at all
At some point in his rule, the Lilim he had saved as a child came to see him. Mazikeen, a daughter of Lilith, came to serve Lucifer. The child he had met, however, had half of her face mutilated, which Lucifer seemed to like. Mazikeen served faithfully at his side for a long time, and they became very close, even lovers.
Dream, Morpheus, once came to Hell to claim back an item that a demon had stolen, and won. It was considered an affront to Hell, and proud Lucifer was at first very bitter, but when Morpheus announced his return, he decided to do something else. Lucifer quit. He reveals to Morpheus that it was simply because he was bored.
LUCIFER: ...In the beginning I enjoyed it. I was--I am--more powerful than any of them. I could have destroyed any of them--perhaps even all of them--without much effort. So I manipulated them; set them one against the other; let them facion and divide and plot. But...But I grew weary, Dream Lord. Mightily weary. I ceased to care.He even goes as far to reveal to Morpheus that he resented humans for blaming him for their faults.
LUCIFER: Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. "The devil made me do it." I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them. And then they die, and they come here (having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fufill their desire for pain and retribution. I don't make them come here. They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No. They belong to themselves...They just hate to have to face up to it.
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And so, great Lucifer did decide to use his talents for neither good nor evil. Though his talents are as many as demons that reside in Hell, he did so decide to take residence with music, playing the piano for those that were drawn to his Lux.
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So Lucifer does consider his treasure, and tries to tempt fate with it! He did sayeth 'fate sucks' and decides to create his own world anew, separate from his father's world.
Armed with this powerful artifact, and a second chance, so to speak, Lucifer decides to get a six card spread from Meleos, an angel who now owns a bookstore in Hamburg. Lucifer asks a divination about the Letter of Passage from Meleos and the Basanos, a powerful, living Tarot deck. He returns to Meleos to find that the Basanos have escaped. Lucifer, enraged, punishes Meleos for disobeying him by destroying every book in his shop, the knowledge that Meleos had been collecting for an eternity. I never said that Lucifer wasn't a bastard.
The Basanos, escaped, instead take Jill Presto as a host. An assistant to a magician named Hugo, Jill has big dreams, but no way to really seize them. The Basanos promise her what she wants, so she agrees to allow them to use her body as a host. That night, at a show, she shows off the power of Basanos, bringing an early death to three people that hurt one of her friends. The theater is cleared, but Lucifer and Mazikeen remain. They battle the Tarot cards, but Lucifer is able to corner Innocence, the childlike speaker for the cards, into performing a divination after all.
Innocence tells him that the card that he pinned in his fight, The Lightbringer says
"...shows him. The Lord of no realm. The apostate pinned on a dilemma. God holds the door for you like a fawning footman, but where does it lead?"The Mountain says
"This crosses him. You must ascend and yet you have no winds. You will search for them through windowless rooms."The Innocence tells him
"This raises him. Ah, but don't be misled. I am your enemy, Morningstar. Now and always. The child that lights the way for you is someone quite different. And you'll have to return the favor."The Fool tells him
"This casts him down. Your creator has given you a poisoned chalice. The Letter of Passage will open for you, but only once. And when it closes behind you, it will close forever."The Wheel tells him
"This is where he begins treading the same ground again. For the wheel has come full circle, a revolution."And finally, The Tower says
"This is where it ends."
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Then pursuing his wings, Lucifer journeys into Izanami's realm, a realm where he is close to mortal because of the complicated rules that the reigning Goddess proposes. Eventually, he makes his way to the House of Windowless Rooms, however, and starts to barter and connive to get his wings back. He is surprisingly humble to Izanami, but she does not speak, and instead Susano-O-No-Mikoto, her son, speaks for her. The Goddess's sons try to distract Lucifer with formalities, but Lucifer is adamant. He drives off a demon assassin, Musubi, and even takes her as an ally, and outsmarts a rash son and kills a calm-tempered son, only to finally win his wings from Izanami, though begrudgingly.
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In the beginning Lucifer created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of Lucifer was hovering over the waters...
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Shortly after, the revived Michael comes to speak with his brother. Michael speaks on Yahweh's behalf when he tells Lucifer that the Void is causing problems for the Host. He demands that Lucifer close the Void, but Lucifer is enraged by this and instead does the opposite to spite Yahweh. He splits his single gate into an infinite number of gates, spreading them across dimensions and worlds so that anyone that wants to enter his land can do so. After Michael leaves, Lucifer welcomes all into his universe, with the same rule to not worship anyone at all.
However, by opening his gates to all, he also gets some unexpected and unwelcome visitors. Jill Presto, host to the Basanos, enters his realm. Though he only appears gone for a few seconds to argue with Mazikeen, a longer time passes in his realm, and it's enough time for the Basanos to take over his world. Because Susano kept two of Lucifer's feathers, his powers were unstable, so when Lucifer tries to use his firey powers to drive the Basanos out, he burns and falls, a charred corpse, to his earth.
He meets Death, but refuses her, and Elaine Belloc shows up to help Lucifer. In her astral form, she meets both Lucifer and Death, but her life was traded for his, as prophesied by the Basasnos. Meanwhile, Jill Presto had become a vessel for the Basanos' child, and lay wait in a tall tower. Lucifer once revived, left Meleos to battle the Basanos he unleashed as Lucifer flew to that tower. He threated Jill, and for fear of their child being damaged, Lucifer makes a deal with the Basanos. He will not harm that child as long as it does not try to harm or interfere with him, but the Basanos must destroy themselves.
Lucifer then left his realm to duel Amenadiel, as promised, and asked Mazikeen to take back the feathers that Susano held. Several assassins try to kill a weakened Lucifer, and one nearly succeeds using a cherub of despair and doubt. Duma, the silent angel of Hell, helped Lucifer by taking him to the painfields, where impaling himself helped to rid the cherub's curse. Lucifer wins the duel with Amenadiel using some simple trickery, and Lucifer's power and wings are returned to him, and he leaves Hell.
How you vex Yahweh, o God of your own domain. But what if he were to leave; what would you be then? Willful Lucifer, will you help the world that you left?
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Taking advantage of Yahweh's absence, two Titans attack the Silver City. Together, Michael and Lucifer defeat the Titans, but Heaven is left heavily damaged from their attacks. That, along with Yahweh's absence, is causing the world is falling into chaos. As if to combat that in his world, Lucifer exiles all immortals or kills them. Some amount of time after that, Lucifer is invited to dinner with Destiny. I mean, literally. Lucifer brings Elaine, and Michael ends up showing up as well. After some harsh words between them, everything calms down, or at least until Michael and Lucifer argue about whose Creation is better. Basically. (It's Lucifer's)
Eventually, though, the arguments shift to Lucifer and Destiny. Lucifer reveals that Destiny is, unsurprisingly, the least favorite of the Endless because of his associations with predestiny. As if to show his distaste, he actually burns a page from Destiny's book in rage. However, the ashes form the words "Fenris" and "Yggdrasil", showing that even burnt, Lucifer cannot escape his destiny.
Some time later in between some comparatively minor conflicts, Elaine, Lucifer, and Michael team up to face Fenris. Fenris had the plan to spill blood on the roots of the Yggdrasil, speeding up the chaos that Yahweh's leave has caused. The three are drawn to Yggdrasil, but by the time they get there, Lucifer and Michael are badly injured, and Elaine is blinded. Fenris and his comrade Abonsam approach, and Fenris tricks Elaine into having Lucifer drink Abonsams blood. Lucifer is maddened by the blood, and nearly kills Elaine, but instead attacks his brother, fatally wounding Michael at the foot of Yggdrasil.
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Using Hell's new ruler, Christopher Rudd, as an ally, as well as Noema and other members of the Host, Lucifer and the others proceed to the Silver City. They plan to have Elaine sit on the Primum Mobile, something like a throne, and thus become The Presence. However, as they run to the Primum Mobile, Fenris is drawn to them, and the ceremony is interrupted. Fenris and Lucifer fight long and hard, but Lucifer is able to destroy Fenris using a last burst of power. He then uses Noema to speak with Yahweh, and Lucifer actually saves the world by convincing Yahweh to return to his Creation.
And then comes the end, and Lucifer so leaves his universe and all others, for he cannot find his freedom...
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Here, he can only fly through nothingness, but oddly, it is here that he meets his Father face to face. Yahweh proposes an offer to Lucifer; Yahweh proposes that they give each other themselves so that they can truly understand each other, but Lucifer refuses without a thought. He does not want to give up himself, even if it would allow him to be that free. Instead, he flies off forever in the freedom that he created, leaving all behind.
that didst cast lots over the nations!
I joke about making a shrine to this character because, come on, he's Lucifer, but I really do love the character. He has such an interesting perspective on life, having been there since it started (Hell, he helped start it) and his willful desire for independence was so interesting to me. I loved the character from when I read the Sandman, then was pleasantly surprised to learn a few months later that he had his own spin-off series and that it was excellent. Those two things usually don't go together in any media, but especially not comics, I'm afraid. But it was a wonderful surprise. The series is, without a doubt, a heavy one, and perhaps heavier than the series it comes from. But the first time I read this series, I finished it in a single day, because I wanted to see Lucifer's tale unfold.Lucifer in this series differs so much from the stereotypical views of the Morningstar, and that's what drew me to his character from the very beginning. He does not care about human souls, human activities, or anything else. In fact, he's a very selfish character. He does not work for others, only himself. He is a trickster, but not in the traditional way. He is fairly clever, never lying or twisting the truth, but merely outsmarting his foes. He does not wantonly display his power or rank, for that amount of arrogance is beneath him. And that, I think, is why Lucifer is feared and respected in the world of The Sandman.
He is a flawed character, with many more bad character traits than good, as should be expected, but he's very sympathetic in his ultimate goal. After all, most of us, at one time, may feel frustrated to live up to the expectations of our parents. Lucifer's father, however, has lofty expectations to the point that his sons' lives are all laid out before them. So Lucifer rebelled against this idea, wanting to create a life that was all his own, and not his father's. He wanted freedom and independence, but when your father is an omnipotent and omnipresent God, it's a hard thing to find. That's why he goes as far as to create his own universe, even though it ultimately backfires.
That is why this shrine exists. It is a shrine to a character whose will was so strong that it allowed him to create and destroy what he strove for, eventually deciding to soar amongst nothingness with no end. That may sound like a punishment, but to Lucifer, it was his life's goal. That amount of dedication is what fascinated me with his character, as well as the idea that he was so very honestly clever, not needing any of the stereotypical tricks of the devil. He may not be the warmest character by any stretch, but he's a character that is very dedicated to his ultimate goal, as large a goal as it is.
and thou saidst in thy heart
Lucis Ferre was created over the period of three days, really. I started on August 7th, 2009, and finished on the 9th. It was made for amassment's one-page-shrine marathon. This is a very long one page shrine, I have to admit, but the story of this character is so very interesting that I felt bad for not including all of it.The name Lucis Ferre comes from the Latin for "Lightbringer" and it's one of Lucifer's many names. The quote in the layout is from Oscar Wilde: "We are each our owl devil, and we make this world our hell." It's an interesting quote, and it's perfect to represent this character. He expresses this sentiment to Morpheus himself, after all! The section titles also come from the only Biblical reference to Lucifer, Isaiah 14:12-15:
"How art thou fallen from heavenIn addition, there are a few buttons below that you can use to link to this shrine if you'd like.
O day-star, son of the morning!
How art thou cast down to the ground,
That didst cast lots over the nations!
And thou saidst in thy heart:
'I will ascend into heaven,
Above the stars of God
Will I exalt my throne;
And I will sit upon the mount of meeting,
In the uttermost parts of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be like the Most High (Elyon).'
Yet thou shalt be brought dow to the nether-world,
To the uttermost parts of the pit."
