thinking a lot about the power/birth order of the brothers and how that connects to their sins. theres no real resolution to this im literally just psychoanalyzing the seven deadly sins don’t mind me. ((also there are a million more of these posts out there so i am literally just talking))
so like, from the bottom up
beel and belphie are the 6th and 7th born respectively because both of their sins — while, in their absolute worst forms can harm others (i.e. through inaction or resource hoarding) — mostly harm themselves. indulging in sloth means missing out on important things, indulging in gluttony entails a mistreatment of the body; both of them fall in line with the “disrespect to yourself as a holy creation” interpretation of sin. beel gets his slightly higher rank because at the worst form of gluttony — i.e. gorging yourself while others starve — more people are harmed than at the worst form of sloth, where the harm is slightly more indirect.
asmo is next because while, again, at the worst level of lust, you can do extreme harm to others, the more common forms of it tend to only hurt the person involved. it’s the perversion of genuine intimacy for the sake of short-lived pleasure and, while there are situations where that works out well for everyone involved, it can go sour rather quickly. higher than beel because the extreme of lust directly causes harm to others and because even more minor forms can cause harm to others (i.e., imbalance in attachment between sinner/sinned against)
satan his sin of wrath, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, ranks 4th — though in this case not because of its comparative inability to harm others, because so much of what wrath is entails harming others — but because for it to compare to the destruction capable of being wrought by the final three sins, it needs to act in conjunction with another sin. wrath is unique among the sins in that is tends to be time-bound — at a certain point, wrath has to fizzle out because it’s a reactive sin. once you’ve gotten your retribution, that energy has no where else to go. and so while wrath is capable of extreme destruction at all levels, like the other younger brothers, very rarely can wrath alone topple empires.
the final three sins build upon each other in complementary ways, until they reach a point where the havoc they are capable of causing is boundless, hence their high ranking — but they have their own interior power dynamics as well
envy is almost the opposite of wrath insofar as it tends not to be very destructive in the day to day, and as such it’s high ranking seems strange. but the real destructive power of envy comes from resentment and entitlement. at the root of envy are pride and greed — which is why it’s ranked below them in the top three hierarchy. envy relates to greed in a very concrete way — the envious covet something and obsess over it in a way nearly indistinguishable from greed — it’s pure wanting in that regard. envy’s connection to pride, on the other hand, is more complex (especially as presented in om! in connection to levi’s insecurity.) but ultimately, i feel that what causes envy is a feeling that you deserve what others have, because you’re better than them — and doesn’t the lack of recognition of that fact just drive you crazy? you feel superior, and want certain things because you feel superior, and as such, when other, less deserving people have the things you want, you’d stop at nothing to take what is rightfully yours. it’s the kind of thing that can motivate wars, destruction on a massive scale which is typically misattributed to wrath. think of the trojan war — certainly paris’ lust for helen might have incited agamemnon’s wrath, but it was the latter’s envy at the theft — the indignity of someone taking what he believed was rightfully his own and the determination to get helen back — which launched them into war
likewise, greed is motivated by a similar sense of superiority — that is to say, by pride. but the key thing which distinguishes it from envy is that someone doesn’t need to be envious to indulge in greed. it’s not necessary to feel as if the things you want are in the wrong hands to motivate you towards destructive greed — you just have to want it. the destruction greed causes is thus more wanton, more chaotic, than the pointed destruction of envy. you pillage a land because you want its resources, and you feel as though that’s an important enough reason for the destruction because you’re important. hence greed’s position above envy in the hierarchy — envy needs greed to exist, but greed has no real need for envy to perpetuate itself.
finally, pride — the sin that begets all others. why do you idle your time away when you ought to be doing more important things? because your time is inherently more valuable than others, of course. why do you hoard the best morsels for yourself while others starve? because you’re better than them and thus deserve more, obviously. why do you feel entitlement to other’s bodies — either to pursue your own pleasure or to fulfill your own rage? because your ends are important enough to justify any means. why would you do anything to get the things that you want? because you deserve them more than others and, after all, the sheer fact that you want them in the first place ought to be enough to justify it — it’s you. pride is the ultimate root of all destruction that could ever be brought about because its fundamental sense of entitlement demands whatever means allow it to pursue its ends
This is a line spoken by Satan on the home screen, and it’s a fairly unique sentiment, given that most of the brother’s thoughts about Mammon stem from annoyance. Thinking about it now, though, this might have some truth to it. Let’s recap what the boys have done:
Lucifer repeatedly threated MC, verbally and physically, so that he could continue to keep secrets from the demon brothers.
Leviathan was prepared to kill MC on the spot for beating him in the quiz game about The Seven Lords.
Asmodeus ruined Helene’s life with their affair, and only became interested in MC after seeing their strength.
Beelzebub wrecked an entire fucking restaurant for not continuing to serve him food, and also destroyed MC’s room in his rage.
And Belphegor actually succeeds in murdering the MC.
To my knowledge, Satan hasn’t done anything this extreme, but I still believe we can expect for Satan to enter a true rage soon and probably tear down the Devildom brick by brick. But this is Satan’s analysis to begin with, so he believes that Mammon is better than he is.
Because despite all of Mammon’s nonsense, and all of the chaos he’s caused, Mammon really adores and wants to protect MC. He fell for them hard over the course of the story, and things like MC’s strength and their relation to Lillith are just icing on the cake.
I still love all the brothers, and the things listed above serve as reminders that they really are demons and shouldn’t be thought of as “uwu soft bois” in any serious analysis. However, I’m starting to think that Satan is right, and Mammon is the most human of them all.
the Obey Me! fandom’s interpretation of Satan will never cease to drive me absolutely buckwild. I have currently identified 3 Satan stereotypes:
1. I Have No Emotions. Let Me Read More Books
2. my sole purpose in life is to inconvenience lucifer in as many ways as possible, no matter how small. i hate him and also have daddy issues..
3. çät
please understand that he is all of these things at once and so much more. let me respond to these in order.
1. Yes, he can be stoic and emotionless. When MC is leaving the devildom, Satan confesses that he only felt rage before he met them (and he suppresses that rage like nobody’s business). He even needs MC to help him understand what he’s feeling, aka, love. But Satan also spends time with Asmo, and makes fun of Mammon, and likes animals, and calls MC cruel if they choose to kiss him when they’re leaving the Devildom.
2. He spends less of the story hating Lucifer than Belphie does, but when Satan does swap bodies with Lucifer, he goes HARD. Remember how Satan and Mammon were going to plan a party with every demon stripper in the universe just to trash Luci’s rep? And how Satan used Lucifer’s power to threaten and control as a demonstration of how unfair it is to treat others in such a way? And then they move on, and Satan spends the next 10 chapters as a shy softboi with lots of development potential.
3. to be fair, he does like cats a considerable amount
Asmodeus would absolutely do TikTok dances and force MC to do them with him. When MC’s busy, he bribes Mammon with money (he’s a model so he looks good in front of a camera) or Beel with food (he picks up the moves surprisingly well). On the one day where none of these three were available, Asmo begged Satan nonstop until he finally agreed to learn Renegade. It ends up being the most liked video on TikTok. Satan never mentions it again.
1. Asmo and Satan are the closest of the brothers. Asmo can’t sit still long enough to get immersed in a book, so when they spend time together, Satan ends up doing whatever Asmo’s doing at the time. He can’t count the amount of times that Asmo’s tested makeup on him, or asked his opinion on shallow gossip. (Spoiler: he looks hot as a girl, too). Sometimes Asmo will take Satan out to nightclubs or drag shows, and he secretly enjoys the chance to learn more about the subculture.
2. He has an incredible constitution for alcohol, also attained from time spent with Asmo. He still gets hungover and sick in the morning, but he’s very good at staying composed when very drunk. That is, except when Mammon and Asmo conspired to spike Satan’s drink, just to see what he would really be like without a filter. An hour later, Satan broke down crying after the death of a book character got spoiled for him, and threatened to go to the human world just to punish the author for writing it. The brothers agreed immediately afterwards that Satan should stay sober in the future.
3. He plays water polo. He’s not bad at it.
4. Whenever he hears Lucifer’s music playing, he plays his own music very loudly - death metal with lots of screaming, or even some edgy Nightcore songs at maximum volume. When Lucifer bursts into his room and demands that he turn it down, he realizes that Satan is wearing noise-cancelling headphones.
5. Satan would be the best piano player of all the brothers. It used to be Lucifer, but Satan’s competitive streak mixed with relentless patience eventually made him the top. However, whenever he plays piano, Levi requests that he play anime openings, and Mammon smashes the lowest and highest keys simultaneously in an attempt to add to the music.
6. He had a brief stint with Devildom cryptocurrency, where he would dig for it and exchange it for rare items. Mammon then stole Satan’s laptop and attempted to extract the cryptocurrency. When he didn’t succeed, he tried to sell Satan’s entire laptop. Key word: tried.
7. He canonically describes himself as an introvert, despite being very sociable. I think that he got embarrassed by his brothers a lot when he talked with others before the exchange program, but when he’s out with MC, he really enjoys meeting others and being spontaneous.
8. He would stargaze with you in the human world, point out every constellation, and tell you the story behind it. In exchange, you tell him the stereotypes associated with different peoples’ Zodiac signs, and you laugh about it together all night. After that, Satan cuts the horoscope out of the newspaper every day for the two of you to read. Unbeknownst to you, he keeps the clippings for his Devildom scrapbook.
it’s time for a compilation of the gems and most brilliant thoughts about Satan that people have left in the comments. please behold:
“The fandom’s interpretations don’t do him any justice at all. He can feel any emotions like everyone else, idk why people keep making him a heartless ass. With the Lucifer thing, people make it seems like it’s a one way street, but Satan only gets angry and retort when Luci taunted him (they even point it out in The Escorts Devilgram). Like yea he sometimes go out of his way to annoy Lucifer too but it’s pretty mild.” - @banbobeo
“Satan just plays his cards close to his chest [...] Boy’s going through the hard work of individuation on his own through reading, pranks, hobbies, etc. But he can also achieve that by opening up to someone else and feeling really understood by them. What affection has he ever really experienced outside of cats? And how about the fact that we don’t know exactly what he is. How does a full-blooded demon emerge from a gestation inside an angel and a birth from a fallen angel? He is truly a unicorn. But no, let’s have another story about cats.” - @getbehindme-satan
“One of Asmo’s lines in the home screen is like “Some say that if Satan gets truly angry, the whole world will end.” And ngl that makes me curious if this is true in some form or if it’s not.” - @leviskokoro
“Another thing that I feel like is interesting: in the bit right before the attic door is unlocked, when you're alone with Lucifer in the library, he asks MC "which of my brothers are you interested in?" and if they say Satan, he says "Yes, he makes for a safe choice. If I were you, I'd choose Satan as well."” - @doctor-bus
