…although at his core he’s still Lucifer.” – Bob Singer
I’ve seen polemics about this concept expressed in the promotional video for 13×13 and in general about the current storyline regarding Lucifer, and I must say that I don’t really agree with the negative interpretation of what the show is doing right now.
In the video, Singer and Dabb are talking about the fact that Lucifer finds himself in a position where he’s forced to ask for help, which is something extraneous to him and “humanizes” him. People have been protesting against the idea of “humanizing Lucifer”, but I think it’s actually a good point.
It’s like the universe is pushing “humanity” on Lucifer – and the point is that he keeps rejecting it and despising it.
Remember, if you were around, the general fandom vibe towards Lucifer before he was reintroduced during the Carver era? I remember all the “Lucifer isn’t so bad” comments, the “in this fandom we love Satan” jokes, all the “the devil is misunderstood” posts. But I’m not here to polemicize with that. It’s just our starting point.
The revelation that Lucifer had been the original carrier of the Mark of Cain, the original lock and key for the Darkness, placed the character in a position where it was easy to paint Lucifer as a force of light whose essence was corrupted and wasn’t, ultimately, responsible for his choices and actions.
Dean had fought against the influence of the Mark, people pointed out, but he’d carried it for a couple years, not ever since the dawn of creation! Can we even hold Lucifer responsible for the consequences of his corruption? The Darkness has no longer influence over him, but he’s carried the Mark for eons, and those effects seem to be irreversible, right?
For a little while I also wondered if the show actually was headed in that direction – if not the redemption, at least the salvation of Lucifer, sort of à la Darth Vader, the idea that the darkness had taken a toll on him so large that it was ‘too late’ for him to revert to the light, the subtle reveal that there was a wistfulness in him, a level of awareness of being some sort of victim to a process of corruption that didn’t entirely came from within.
But this show’s favorite thing is to subvert your expectations, and instead of presenting Lucifer as a noble creature victim of his own eagerness to do good for his father (by accepting the great burden of the Mark), instead of painting him as a tragic figure (like he had tried to paint himself in season 5, after all), the show is continuously presenting him to us as an utterly unlikable, pathetic creature.
Remember all the “Lucifer isn’t so bad, the actual Worst™ is Metatron!!” posts after the end of season 8 and through the next couple seasons? Ho ho said Dabb. Remember how the Carver era made Metatron human to reveal his core as miserable, despicable and pathetic, in a contrasting parallel to Cas’ own experience with humanity? Well, says Dabb, we’re putting a spin on the theme with our very original Castiel major parallel, Lucifer.
Because Metatron, unlike Lucifer, had a deep sense of reflection, and that inclination to reflect on himself and others ultimately allowed him to find a nobility from his own flaws. Lucifer, on the other hand, has the self-awareness of a fuckboi. Also, while directly experiencing humanity didn’t change Metatron very much, but his respect for his father’s creation including, in fact, especially, humanity led him to his ultimate moment of elevation. Lucifer does not respect humanity, and that’s the whole point. Cas, Metatron, Lucifer all found themselves homeless and alone and facing a plethora of human sensations that were alien and shocking to them. They have had arcs regarding angel grace and change and choices, and choice brings us to the big question of responsibility and accountability for one’s actions.
Lucifer the grand archangel, force of light, who loved his father to the point that he accepted the greatest burden – that’s easy to keep to a different scale of judgement than a human. But the show pushes his non-human characters towards humanity for the very reason of putting them bare and ultimately reveal their core. And this is what’s happening with Lucifer. He’s been experiencing physical and emotional sensations close to a human’s, he’s been confronting himself with experiences and people who could potentially offer him some kind of insight (the people around Vince Vincente, Kelly, Anael), but he keeps rejecting humanity. As Singer said, no matter how much humanity we put on Lucifer, his core his still… Lucifer’s.
Humanizing Lucifer means giving him a chance. Giving him choices that maybe he didn’t have as an angel. Stripping him of his angelic attributes, which include the whole corruption via the Darkness thing, means that he has a chance to re-elaborate his self, to experience the world and humanity without the layers formed by his experience with carrying the locked Darkness. It means saying, okay, this is Lucifer. Forget about God, forget about the Darkness, forget about the Mark. This is Lucifer and it’s a vile, wretched creature that does not deserve our sympathy, unless maybe in the form of the homeless guy with the injured leg who very gently told Lucifer that he gave off a repellent vibe and invited him to share a meal with him by the dumpster because the homeless guy was friendly and helpful, not because Lucifer deserved it.
It’s like the universe is giving Lucifer the tools to understand – “I had that experience, I didn’t like it. Hunger. Cold. Loneliness. I don’t know how they keep going” – but he rejects the opportunity and chooses to stick to a certain version of his self – “Lucifer the great and terrible. I don’t know why I said that. Stupid. I mean, it’s like pretty soon, I’m not gonna feel anything, you know. I mean the more I do this, the stronger I get, the more me I become. Lucifer, Prince of Darkness. King of Lies. I’m back, baby”. He does not accept the possibility of changing. Unlike Cas, who embraced change and who only takes steps back if he feels that he has no other choice if he wants to protect Dean/humanity and feels bad about it (season 6, reacquiring angel grace…). Not really unlike Metatron, who never really changed, but still reflected on it and admitted his flaws and saw the good of humanity, and there lies all the difference in the world.
So yeah, let’s humanize Lucifer and show that is core is miserable and pathetic. If this season is about revealing ‘who we are’, there, that’s Lucifer.
THIS!!!!!
Humanising him doesn’t automatically mean redeeming him. Hitler was a human and a despicable person who deserved to die.
Knowing his backstory, seeing that he whines and whines about daddy not loving him enough and never growing, never changing, when he’s given the opportunity to time and time again, that’s showing him as irredeemable.
They’re literally showing the lack of redeemable features he has right now. His CHOICE to act this way.
Which is at the core of the SPN themes about good and bad and the grey area being about CHOICE and again, clearly, as an opposing mirror image of Castiel, the Angel who loves humanity and is so good and selfless at his core v the Angel who hates humanity and is so bad and selfish at his core.
Side note about Cas: the mirror could not be clearer, they even had 2 Cas mirrors (Anael and Lucifer) hashing his story out between each other on that bed and showing Lucifer’s similar starting point but opposing views to Cas’s in the end through his choices, an interesting metaphorical mirror // The Empty and Cas as visual mirrors earlier in the season.
Basically yes. Exactly Marghe. There was a potential after the earlier seasons for redemption through the mark external etc but Dabb has taken that and said NOPE.
This arc is absolutely vilifying Lucifer through showing his POTENTIAL for redemption but then every time given the option revealing the way he chooses to do such irredeemable things.
It’s giving him many crossroad choices where he COULD choose to be redeemed and every time he chooses NOT to be.
@tinkdw and @postmodernmulticoloredcloak
I wrote about something very similar here. Though I forgot about Metatron.
I was admittedly quite concerned when we first saw Lucifer in Castiel’s beige colours and saw him attempting to team up and align himself with our angel. The parallel is deliberate though, to show that although they may share similar experiences and character arcs, at their core they are fundamentally different.
9×03 was Castiel’s brush with being human
13×13 showed Lucifer’s with very similar details
13×07 was our first real look at Lucifer in Castiel’s colour scheme, where he spend the whole episode right alongside Cas, forcing us to make the parallel and look at all their similarities.
All three episodes were written by Buckleming.
Is it… is it possible they’ve actually written something cohesive?
Despite popular opinion, they know what they’re doing, they’re just not always good at the actual writing part. If you look at their episodes there’s a strong consistency in themes. Speaking of which, one of those themes is sexual violence/nonconsensual sexuality and every time people yell at it but it’s literally a theme that ties in the larger theme of the show of bodily autonomy (like there’s no sexual violence before s7?). They’re just wonky at writing things nicely, oftentimes, and sometimes lack tact. (And many choices regarding, for instance, deaths of recurring characters, are not the choice of the individual episode’s writer(s), but it’s chosen by the showrunners or at least is a group decision and the showrunner gets the last word). So yeah, it’s not a coincidence.
“It humanizes Lucifer a little bit…
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