What Is It About Angels and Devils?

We're fascinated by them.  Right now I'm reading Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil and I find it profound and brilliant. It is one of the most unforgettable books I have ever read.

I won't review it here now, I'll be doing that on Goodreads shortly. What I do want to discuss is the subject matter.

What intelligent person doesn't have questions about God, creation and Heaven and Hell? We want to know. We can believe, that is the miracle of faith but I think we also want very much to know, to have all the answers to all the many questions we have. Perhaps it for this reason alone these kinds of books are as popular as they are.

That aside, I am fascinated by good and evil and the constant battle between the two. Angels might be God's foot soldiers, His helpmates. They know what He wants to do and they will do it without Him even asking. And He's pleased with his children of light.

They either exist or they don't. We can believe or not. What I am delighted about is they have become popular subject matter for fiction along with their evil counterpart.

Having them interact with characters we create is terrific. Having them then spar with one another good against bad is mind blowing.

As this is going on, in its very depiction, we are challenged as to what we believe.

If there be monsters then there also be angels to save us. If one thing comes from hell the other surely comes from Heaven.

Mightn't Heaven realistically or symbollically be there with the promise of salvation? And if it is, surely the characters we create fight the most important battles we can possibly imagine, conflicts that really mean something!

Can We Pity The Damned?

Just going to make the focus of this question general. It refers to both The House on Blackstone Moor as well as the sequel, Unholy Testament.

A lot of dark things come out of the first book. Human beings and demons alike are shown to be capable of great evil, of horrific violence and the worst sins imaginable.

Louis was referred to by one of the books' reviewers as a Byronic hero. Perhaps he is. After all, he's  damned through no fault of his own yet he has a moral code he exists by, despite the fact that it ensures absolutely nothing will come of it. Louis Darton because of his father's support of Lucifer knows what his destiny is. As he says:

I am what I am... no promise of heaven awaits me. I have too much  freedom and no restraint…”

Think about it! How would we behave if there was no reason to live a decent and honorable life? Would we live principled lives if nothing we did counted, if there was no punishment ever?

Can those creatures (whatever they are) vampires, fallen angels, demon spawn, be the object of our pity ever? Should we try to see how it all began for them? Why it was and how they came to be what they are?

I probe these questions in the first book as well as the second. And this probing and pondering has led me to some very surprising conclusions--or questions. And let me say, I don't always know the answer!
But I do know something. I think  this debate all hinges on one word: 'pity.'

And that leads me to one surprising conclusion: which is, I think, I can have more pity in my heart for a vampire or a marauding werewolf on the loose than I can for an unrepentent entirely human serial killer.

What about you? What do you think?