I finished reading John Milton's Paradise Lost for a podcast assignment, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts.
I know that many call the poem's Satan an anti-hero, but it really does deeper than that.
Milton didn’t accidentally make Satan look like a hero. He did it on purpose.
And not to glorify him, but to critique the very idea of what we call a “hero.”
It's no secret that Milton took inspiration from the ancient poets Homer and Virgil, and he gave Satan several traits that define them.
Like Achilles, he's prideful.
Like Odysseys, he's cunning.
Like Aeneas, he's a charismatic leader.
These are the qualities we’re used to admiring. We cheer for them. We aspire to have them.
And that’s exactly the problem.
Because in Satan, those traits aren’t heroic anymore. They’re pushed to their extreme.
Pride becomes defiance against God.
Cunning becomes manipulation and deceit, leading to Adam and Eve sinning.
Leadership becomes the ability to rally others toward ruin, like taking a third of Heaven's Angel down with him after his rebellion failed. And yet, they sill follow him.
His speech that rallies the fallen angel is painted as a fallen hero getting back on his feet, but then you have to remind yourself who's speaking.
Satan isn’t a hero that went wrong. He’s what those heroic ideals look like when we don’t give them any kind of moral restraint.
And it’s that familiarity that makes him unsettling.
So if Milton is critiquing heroic ideals, why do so many readers still see Satan as a hero—or at the very least, an anti-hero?
The answer is that Milton made him sound like one. Perhaps too good.
In Paradise Lost, Satan is one of the most compelling speakers. He’s confident, persuasive, and defiant. Even after being banished, he delivers one of the poem’s most infamous lines:
“Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”
On the surface, it sounds powerful. Even admirable.
He comes off as a figure declaring eternal opposition to an unjust authority—someone whose independence and defiance can earn admiration, especially from those who feel powerless.
But that interpretation only works if you stop there.
Because the moment you actually read the epic and look closer at his words and actions, things take a darker turn.
In Book 1, he openly declares:
“To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight…”
“Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil.”
This isn’t confusion. It isn’t a moral struggle
It’s a conscious choice to oppose goodness itself, to commit evil for the sake of doing evil.
Even when something good could come from tragedy, Satan’s goal is to twist it, undo it, and corrupt it.
And that’s where the “anti-hero Satan” side falls apart.
An anti-hero without any moral framework is just a villain.
He’s not fighting injustice. He’s not seeking freedom.
He’s so consumed by his way that he wants to make everything else fall with him.
As long as God loses, he’s satisfied.
And at that point, the question isn’t whether he’s admirable:
it’s why we ever thought he was.
When he declares, “Evil, be thou my good,” he is not stepping into ambiguity—he is committing himself to corruption.
His goal in tempting Adam and Eve is not liberation, but shared downfall. He does not want humanity to be free—he wants them to fall with him.
And this is why comparing him to Prometheus, a supposed trickster figure, doesn’t really work either.
Yes, they both defy a higher power, suffered for it, and changed humanity.
But their motivations couldn’t be more different.
Prometheus suffers for humanity.
Satan suffers because of himself.
Prometheus gives fire knowing it will cost him everything.
Satan spreads sin knowing it will destroy everything.
Prometheus resists injustice. He doesn’t try to overthrow Zeus—he simply defies him to help humanity.
Lucifer does what he does out of petty spite.
And that difference matters, because it changes how we judge them.
Prometheus is remembered as a benefactor.
There’s a reason one is celebrated in myth, has a festival named after him, and the other is met with hesitation when called a “hero.”
Even their divine oppositions reflect this contrast.
In Prometheus Bound, Zeus is flawed, unpredictable, even unjust at times.
But in Paradise Lost, God is not depicted as corrupt or tyrannical. He is presented as just, omniscient, and wholly good, alongside Jesus Christ.
So while Prometheus rebels against flawed authority—
Satan rebels against perfect goodness itself.
One brings fire to humanity.
Even through the lens of Carl Jung’s trickster archetype, Satan doesn’t quite fit.
Tricksters exist outside traditional ideas of good and evil. They disrupt order, but often create transformation.
He doesn’t blur morality—he rejects it.
Tricksters create change.
Satan commits to corruption.
He isn’t a balance between good and evil.
He is the rejection of good altogether.
In that sense, he aligns more with the shadow—the darker side of human consciousness, the voice that pushes toward destruction rather than growth. He's akin to the "Devil on your shoulder" saying.
So if he isn’t a hero, and he isn’t a Promethean figure, then what is he?
The closest answer is that he is a tragic figure, but not a tragic hero in the classical sense.
Like Achilles, he is defined by pride. Like many epic figures, he is powerful, larger than life, unforgettable.
But Achilles eventually lets go of his rage and becomes something more.
He doesn’t fall because of a mistake or a moment of weakness.
He falls because he refuses to stop falling.
Even after defeat—after recognizing what he’s become—he continues.
“Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell.”
At that point, his suffering is no longer just punishment. It becomes his identity.
And that is what makes him tragic.
Not because he is misunderstood, but because he understands exactly what he is doing… and continues anyway.
Milton doesn’t ask us to admire Satan.
He asks us to recognize how easily pride can disguise itself as heroism.
But Paradise Lost does not end with him.
Through the Archangel Michael, Adam is shown a future shaped by loss, struggle, and mortality... but also hope.
He's promised that suffering is not the end of his children's story. Yes, things get worse before they get better, but there's light in the end of the tunnel.
In that sense, Milton’s epic is not really about Satan’s rise or fall.
It is about what remains after the fall.
Because even in a world marked by disobedience and exile, there is still the possibility of grace, endurance, and renewal.
So Satan may dominate much of the poem—but he does not define its meaning.
But it will not be lost forever.
Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
