Week 13 Story Planning: Diomedes

I didn't expect to read Diomedes' name among those Dante placed in the Inferno, especially for fraud. I'd like to write a story about how he got there, why he's still there, and what he's planning to do about it.

Diomedes is one of the most badass Greek heroes around. Notable especially in this context is the fact that he fought gods, especially Ares and Aphrodite, and was a favorite of Athena. He had impenetrable armor crafted by Hephaestus, and a shield and helmet enchanted by Athena, the latter of which he could then use to blast flames at anyone unfortunate enough to fight him.

"He fights with fury and fills men's souls with panic.  I hold him mightiest of them all; we did not fear even their great champion Achilles, son of an immortal though he be, as we do this man:  his rage is beyond all bounds, and there is none can vie with him in prowess."

So ultimately, I don't believe Diomedes would be sitting around in the eighth circle of the Inferno without choosing to be there, and I would like to explore that. 

Part 1

• Diomedes arrives in Circle 8: Fraud, finds Odysseus, and recounts his journey from Elysium and into the Inferno up to that point. 
• D was hanging out in Elysium with his old friends and ex-enemies, fellow heroes and famous good guys from other Greek legends. After a few thousand years, he's bored with the perfect nature of Elysium and itching to go exploring and waging war again. Coincidentally, a messenger shows up at that time with a message: Satan has a claim on your soul, and you're due to be punished for your crimes in the Inferno. D agrees to go along because he sees it as a change for excitement and adventure, and possibly getting back to Earth. He's also curious about those crimes. 
• Recount continued: D arrives on Charon's boat. Minos judges him and sends him to the eighth circle, but doesn't say what the circle's theme or punishment is. On the way, D notably walks through Circle 2: Lust. There, he sees Aphrodite being punished and made an example of for the other sinners there. He also sees Cerberus in the third circle, and Ares in the seventh.
• Back in the present, D wonders why he's been put in the circle of Fraud. He's not too affected by the punishment there, since he's used to being around shooting flames and fireballs. Odysseus explains their shared crimes as "Counselors of Fraud": the theft of the Palladium, persuading Achilles to sail for Troy and therefore causing Deidamia to die of grief, and the stratagem of the Trojan Horse. 
• D figures he's spent enough time here, and decides he'd like to head back up to Earth to see how his former kingdom is doing. Odysseus warns him of the Inferno's enforcers and how, even if he did escape, he'd be relentlessly pursued. Diomedes decides the only way to stop this is to atone for his three crimes. 

Part 2

• Diomedes' first crime, the theft of the Palladium, has already been atoned for since he returned in life. 
• The second crime he atones for by clawing his way back up to Circle 2: Lust. On the way, he grabs Cerberus and sets him loose in the Circle 2 to make his job easier. He finds Deidamia and rescues her. He also helps Aphrodite out, who returns the favor by telling him Athena, D's favorite goddess, is in Circle 6: Heresy. 
• The third crime, the Trojan Horse, is trickiest. D decides the Trojan Horse represented strategical warfare a la Athena. So of course, he has to go fight Athena. 
• He either does that and wins, and escapes in the aftermath, or decides to take Athena to the ninth circle so they can both deal with Satan together.

Tony Kline: Dante's Divine Comedy
Badass of the Week: Diomedes
Wikipedia: Diomedes
Wikimedia Commons: Diomedes

Reading Notes: Dante's Inferno, Part B

It would be difficult to write something that could encapsulate everything the Inferno offers its readers. And there are already a ton of adaptations, but aside from translations, these are complete works in themselves. 

It would be hard to write one self-contained story, unless it were something like the story of Paolo and Franchesca. Still, it wouldn't be complete with out the complete context of Dante's whole Inferno. What to write that could fit under 1k words?

I like the idea of writing a multi-chapter short story about someone who is traveling through a place like the Inferno, but an adaption of it. Since the Inferno is an allegory, I think it would be cool to write a story to re-purpose the allegory. So, maybe it's not religious in nature, but still illustrates the consequences of various sins by way of punishing them as either a natural consequence or committing those sins (like how Dante's diviners can only see behind them as a result of trying to discern the future), or via some kind of punishing device (like the three humans in the devils' three jaws). The setting could be somewhere on earth, like a city where crimes against human rights run rampant--like, a city of rain to contrast the fires of hell, or a city of cold fire.

I think this should be less religious and more based on human rights so it can be more general. Back in Dante's day, 99% of his readership would have subscribed to the same religion as him, but today there's much more discussion of human rights and happiness and laws in a secular sense. Not all of Dante's circles would fit in this context, but some would. Here are a few:

Limbo, the first circle, "contains the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, although not sinful, did not accept Christ... After those who refused choice come those without opportunity of choice." Maybe one way to translate this would be those people who witnessed crimes against humanity but didn't take action against them?

Heresy, the sixth circle, condemns its sinners to "eternity in flaming tombs." This would be the most difficult to adapt, since heresy is religious by definition. But there's also this: "any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs, customs, etc." So, maybe, going against the norm in a harmful way? Or in a way that provokes additional consequences? You have things like not paying taxes, which isn't always considered morally terrible, but definitely has its consequences. But what about something taboo that doesn't fit into any of these other categories? It would be like pouring the milk before the cereal--but actually, you know, serious.

The other circles--lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, violence, fraud, and treachery--are self-explanatory.

I don't think I'd be able to write this in under 1k words, so this post will be part of my future writing wishlist. Ideally, it would be in a journal or epistolary format.




Sources:
Tony Kline: Dante's Divine Comedy
Wikipedia: The Inferno
History Lists: The 9 Circles of Hell
Dictionary.com: Heresy

Image: Pixabay: Journal

Reading Notes: Dante's Inferno, Part A

In high school, I wrote a ten-page paper over one of the Inferno's various allegories. To be honest, I can barely remember the specifics of what I wrote about, besides that it centered around Virgil.

I do remember, however, that when I wrote that paper, the video game adaptation of the Inferno had just come out. I had done a bit of my own research over the game, only to conclude that it was quite a bit different from the text. This seems to happen a lot, especially to the Inferno. It seems to be a popular text for game developers to reference, too, interestingly. The video game "Dante's Inferno" is the most on-the-nose, even though the story is different. The game's plot features Dante, who is a sinner searching for repentance, journeying into Hell to rescue his love Beatrice, as she has been captured by the Devil. In reality, Beatrice doesn't appear in the Inferno at all, and is only mentioned. In real life (as far as I can remember from high school, anyway) Beatrice and Dante were decidedly not lovers. Instead, Dante was a little obsessed with Beatrice, and wrote about her constantly. Their relationship sounds a little more like a stalker-thriller than a love story.

Regardless of all that, the game stays faithful in the game's environment, which is definitely where the game potential always lied. Dante's descriptions have spawned dozens of paintings and sculptures, so it follows that the next adaptation would be highly visual, too. And in a video game, players can explore the nine themed layers of hell. As far as I can tell, the level design is fairly close to the text's descriptions. For example, the final few hours of game play take place in an icy ninth circle of hell alongside the Devil.

I could go on, because I legitimately think video games are one of the coolest mediums to adapt the Inferno to varying degrees. They're all about exploration, world building, and visuals. There's a much longer list of games that have referenced the Inferno without outright adapting it; to name a few--Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Castlevania, Fallout, Resident Evil, all of which are popular/successful franchises.

Basically, I'm all about video games as storytelling mediums, and it's so cool how a work as old as the Inferno can be adapted to such a new form of media.

Sources:
Tony Kline: Dante's Divine Comedy

Wikipedia: The Divine Comedy in Popular Culture
TvTropes: Word of Dante

Image: Wikimedia Commons: Levels of Hell