friday, april 28, 2006
Beelzebub is an ampersand today
We’re reading Paradise Lost in Milton class, and I am totally enjoying it because I can visualize it in ASCII. Let me draw you a picture. If Milton played Nethack, he would (hopefully) recognize this as the beginning of Book II, where Satan is debating the state of Hell with his buddies:
-------
/----------/ \---------\
|} A }|
|} & A A ^ }|
|} A & & & }|
|} & & & }|
|} ^ H H }|
|} H & ; ; }|
|} ^ }|
|}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}|
\----------------------------/
I love how Nethack’s lower levels (called Gehennom) owe their entire mythology to this poem. You can’t imagine* how neat it is to see Demogorgon, Beelzebub, Orcus, and Moloch play a part in something I am required to read. My old friends! I met Demogorgon once, horribly; I usually pay off Beelzebub; Orcus killed me a long time ago; I have a very healthy fear of Moloch. Also, Chaos and old Night’s territory? That’s just the Plane of Air. (I’m only at the end of Book II, so I may find more amusing resonances later.)
Not only do I get to try to reconcile the chronologies of Heaven, Hell, the Bible, and Milton — like everyone else does — I get to try to make sense of the poem within the chronology of Nethack, too. But only if I feel like it, which I do.
*Somehow I think there are very few people who have read Paradise Lost after ascending in Nethack.
comments (2)
*sigh* I never managed to get quite that far in NetHack, sadly (I can never get past the first couple levels of hell, even with my Valkyrie with Mjollnir and gauntlets of power), but the fact that such a connection exists fills me with warm fuzzy feelings.
– Si on 4/28/2006 06:59:34
I... don't understand.
– Lauren on 4/28/2006 22:57:28
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