[0809] The Divine Comedy, Page 7
└ posted on Thursday, 4 August 2016, by Novil
- Larisa: So, are you gonna go mow down those naughty angels with a machine gun, or something like that?
- The Devil: No, I’m not allowed to directly interact with God’s subordinates, let alone harm them.
- Larisa: What can you do, then?
- The Devil: I can do everything within my powers to prevent them from executing their godly plan.
- The Devil: I may never violate “The Rules”, though. In that case, God would be allowed to pass judgement on Sandra immediately and make her drop dead on the spot.
- Book cover: The Rules
- The Devil: On the other hand, if Sandra survived the day, she’d become an “untouchable” protégé of my sister Fortuna.
- Larisa: What’s up with all these rules?! I thought you were the Devil! The Devil doesn’t play by any rules!
- The Devil: We all have to play by the rules they have imposed on us.
- Larisa: Who’s “they”?
- The Devil: Upper management.
![[0809] The Divine Comedy, Page 7](/comics/2016-08-04-0809-the-divine-comedy-page-7.png "[0809] The Divine Comedy, Page 7")
“Upper management”? I don’t even want to know…
@ Ladybug:
There’s always a ‘they’.
@ HMRC4EVR:
Even the “they”s have “they”s of their own. And they have a they. And so on, until there is only s/he/it. Pun intended.
I like this story, I just really like it :3 It is the best from longer stories since cinderella true story ^^
hehe really funny 😀
It’s bureaus all the way down!
so fortuna is the sister of the devil?…and i guess the upper management is grandma, the Fate of the Universe
Satan has always been Lawful Evil.
What is this comic even about anymore.
@ Volpethrope:
Lots of things 🙂
So is Sandra the lynchpin of the universe or something?
Starting to think that these rules are to make sure that there no unwanted wars between the two.
Someone with even higher rank than God and the Devil themselves? What is this, a Chuck Norris arc or what?
@ West
Unless he/she/it is merely a puppet for another ‘they’! it’s turtles all the way down!
I want to see what’s in the rulebook!
A few thousand rules written in microscopic text, or giant type with only about ten loose guidelines? 😉
West wrote:
See “Job” by Robert Heinlein.
@ Hawner:No even higher Bruce Lee!
Satan’s expression in the last panel just sells it
Hmmm Azrael and the Auditors.of Reality.
Upper management – The one above all. I like the sound of that!
I’m still curious as to whether or not he’s going to backstab her in some way. If he weren’t the Devil I wouldn’t be as cautious as I currently am. Especially since he still advertises himself as Evil, and Evil generally isn’t trustworthy. Hopefully that contract actually says what he said it would say, and what she/we interpreted him as saying, or she could have possibly sold her soul without Sandra actually being able to he rescued. (I do know that he said that he’d only have her soul if he was successful, but still not going to not look out for loopholes, misguidance, and outright lying). Still at this point we at least know there are some higher authorities she could possibly appeal to (though I doubt that’ll be effective), plus with what it seems she’ll be gaining by selling her soul, from her perspective it’d be probably worth selling her sould just for those things if Sandra’s life wasn’t on the line.
I mean just notice how he doesn’t give any sort of inkling of what he actually can do, just saying that he can do everything within his power, which is an automatically true statement even if he has no power and has no intention of doing anything so is completely useless as far as gleaning information from it. All we do know is that he can only indirectly protect Sandra, not directly which is not very convincing of what he can do.
For even the Lone One is yet one of the Powers That Be, and is subject to The One.
Upper management = The Author. If you did not play by the rules you won’t get another story arc.
@ Night-X:
If only humans could figure out a similar arrangement!
Berandal wrote:
Wow! You are likely right. 🙂
My first theory was ‘they’ would be all of the demigods, angels, Devil and “Thomas J.” as a ceo type system. But the way he inflected ‘they’ doesn’t imply himself IMO.
@ HMRC4EVR:
It is “they” all way up….
Now Sandra, if you’ll excuse the Devil he has som TPS Reports he has to get filed.
Upper management? Hellish bureaucracy! 🙂
Well… In D&D, Devils are lawful evil and always follow the contract, so he’s not wrong…
The Devil is Lawful Evil in alignment. That’s why he deals in contracts, and actually, despite all the trickery, abides by them.
I hope the upper managment is fire proof ;).
@ Brian:
It is not. 😆
Let me guess: one of the higher management happens to be a red guy who’s six inches taller than Satan, rides a flying motorcycle and carries a jar of marmalade that forces people to commit adultery.
TvTropesgotmehooked wrote:
My theory would be aliens, with god and the devil being former humans. But ‘the author’ would make more sense, I guess.
Yeah, I’m going with the theory that “they” are Oliver Knörzer and Puri Andini.
Who’s at the top? The four fundamental forces? Entropy? Novil?
Yugijak wrote:
Um, yes. Her universe is named for her and her fuzzy friend.
It’s like Fairly Odd Parents, only the mortality rate is much higher.
Upper Management, as in Humanity which invented the concept of gods and religion?
@ AndiJN:
I don’t see this arc being so quick to open the fourth curtain, especially since it is presented as ‘the divine comedy’ and will probably follow a standard story format
AndiJN wrote:
I don’t see this arc being so quick to open the fourth curtain, especially since it is presented as ‘the divine comedy’ and will probably follow a standard story format
@ Mosstone:
Actually, Novil said it would be very loosely based on Goethe’s “Faust”, and not at all on Dante’s “Divine Comedy”.
http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2016/07/11/0802-the-divine-comedy-cover/
this is where we find out that “they” is actually Larisa’s unconscious personality ruling over everything.
This is so like the Book of Job, whose commentaries can be online.
If God is omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing), then it stands to reason that there really is no war. God is the only reality. God created all that is, which includes evil. To say otherwise implies that evil exists independently of God, or that God and Satan are evenly matched and therefore can’t get rid of the other.
God allowing evil to exist is the reason most atheist hate him. Just about everyone knows he exists, but most atheists are really misotheists.
ehrgeiz0 wrote:
Gesundheit.
Volpethrope wrote:
Humor and entertainment, same as always.
@ Peya Luna:
Well they don’t call it the devil’s luck for no reason.
ehrgeiz0 wrote:
How can I hate something that I do not think exists? I certainly hate the concept of believing in anything. But this hatred is certainly to reserved for God.
I find the concept of believing revolting. Either I know based on observable facts, or I do not know – and that means everything is possible.
(To put it bluntly – which of the million or so ideas of “gods” human imagination has produced over eons is the actually the right one?)
My brain simply can not work with a notion I would believe something is cetain way. I either know or do not know, There is nothing in between. Believing would prevent me from learning the truth.
@ Ladybug:
I love the “icky hands” gesture he makes when saying it.