Inferno Justice Quotes Page 8

Lucifer, once God’s favorite and the most beautiful angel of them all, "now is ugly" because of the benighted sin he committed against God, betraying the one who created him out of pride. Lucifer is the ultimate traitor and, as such, is trapped in the earth as surely as the lesser traitors; there he creates the freezing winds that trap the Ninth Circle sinners in ice. Lucifer’s immobility is more profound than the others’ because he creates it himself: his "agitating" wings beat to help him escape from his prison, but all in vain. His image too – of three grotesque heads – is a parody of the Holy Trinity. The three vilest traitors suffer their punishment by eternally being chewed by Lucifer’s three heads. This act of eating is sinisterly twisted; it’s not used to gain nourishment and sustain oneself, but instead to deliberately cause pain. Finally, the description of Lucifer’s biting teeth as "a grinder" reinforces – along with the rhythmic beating of his wings – the concept of Lucifer as a massive machine: mechanical, soulless, and essentially anticlimactic.