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The Legions of Hell: Difference between revisions
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[[File:the_legions_of_hell_-_now_fun-sized_so_you_can_take_a_little_slice_of_eternal_torment_on_the_go.jpg|link=Dungeons and Dragons|frame|[[Oh Crap|Oh. My. Gods.]]]]
[[Our Demons Are Different|Demons]]. [[Eldritch Abomination|Abominations.]] [[Our Monsters Are Weird|Monsters]]. [[Fallen Angel|Fallen Angels]]. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Door-To-Door salesmen]]. There is a place where they go to, and a [[Home of Monsters|place]] from which they spring. Simply calling it [[Another Dimension]] doesn't do it justice.
They are legion, for their numbers are many, and their powers are diverse.
Sometimes [[Mooks]] of [[Satan]] or a [[God of Evil]] (who -- depending on the setting and/or the author's worldview -- may or may not be the same person/thing), and residing in [[Fire and Brimstone Hell]] (or [[Hell|the real deal]]). There may or may not be [[Heaven|heavenly]] [[Good Counterpart|equivalents]], and either one can be treated in a [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]] manner. Heck, if they're in a [[Hentai]] work, they may even have tentacles.
The Shinto version of the afterlife is markedly different from the Christian version; thus, in [[Anime]] not influenced by western notions of Hell and demons, Hell acts more [[Chaotic Neutral]] than evil regardless of how it looks, especially the classic Buddhist and Chinese versions. Demons will be more like [[Celestial Bureaucracy|administrators]] than tormentors, often taken to the [[Fashionable Evil|extreme]].
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However, if [[Good Hurts Evil]], one wonders why the heroes don't just "accidentally" let a nun, monk, priest, child, angel, or other nice being walk in and 'crash the gate shut with a resounding bang and atomized, no, disintegrated the great forces of evil.'
See also: [[Bonus Level of Hell]], for guys slightly higher on the infernal totem-pole see [[Demon Lords and Archdevils]]. For the non-demonic version: [[Alien Invasion]].
{{examples}}
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*** Except towards the end, where he shows himself to be a [[Complete Monster]].
* The forces of Hell and Heaven seem more like rival sports teams than vicious enemies in ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'', but even so the demons can be nasty.
* The [[Di C]] dub of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' lumped all of the show's villains and monsters from the first two seasons into a single evil force called the "Negaverse".
** In the original manga, they were all forms of the [[God of Evil]] Chaos.
* In ''[[Bleach]]'', Hell is not among the villains. In one episode, the [[The Grim Reaper|Soul Reapers]] defeat a fallen ghost who was also a serial killer during his life. A Soul Reaper cannot purify sins made by the living, so the Gate of Hell opens up and a demon reaches out and grabs the damned soul.
** Much better in the manga where the giant demon ''impales him on an equally giant sword.''
*** On the other hand, Hueco Mundo [[Gratuitous Spanish|("Hollow World")]] is a poster child of this trope. The [[The Heartless|Hollows]] themselves were the early antagonists, and the series's [[Big Bad]] eventually sets up shop there.
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* [[Mahou Sensei Negima]]: Negi's hometown was [[Doomed Hometown|doomed]] by one of those. Is not clear if they ''do'' come from Hell, but they are called demons anyway.
** Then later on, {{spoiler|Dynamis}} summons an army of ''several hundred thousand'' demons. Same as above, it's not stated whether they're actually from hell, though.
*** Just a bit later, we are (re)introduced to Zazie Rainyday{{spoiler|'s sister Poyo}}, and {{spoiler|Zazie}} too. They are heavily implied to be from hell.
* The Dark Liege Army in ''[[Nora]]''. Subverted in the fact that they're actually the ''good'' guys.
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** Note that part of the inconsistency has been explained by the fact that demons ''lie all the time''.
** The Neyaphem, a race of exiled demonic mutants led by Azazel, who is also the father of Abyss, Kiwi Black, and Nightcrawler.
* ''[[Spawn]]'' got his superpowers under the conditions of leading the Legions of Hell. [[Faustian Rebellion|He ended up not, but he still kept the powers]].
* In ''[[Lucifer (comics)|Lucifer]]'' a damned but repentent human soul, Christopher Rudd becomes [[The Messiah]] of Hell, and leads the demons and the damned together against the Lilim attempting to conquer the Silver City...and conquer it themselves as revenge for the injustice of allowing Hell to exist.
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* In [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''[[Operation Chaos]]'', the characters end up storming Hell and facing down the legions to recover their daughter.
* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Magic, Inc.]]'', the characters demand of the king of Hell, according to Hell's customs, that he let them inspect his legions looking for their enemy.
* ''[[Discworld]]'' has the Dungeon Dimensions as the home of its [[Legions of Hell]].
** Technically the Dungeon Dimensions are a home for the [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]], while the [[Legions of Hell]] are more amiable and bureaucratic, and reside in various Hells produced by the human imagination.
* The "feeders" from Terry Brooks' ''[[The Word and The Void|The Knight of the Word]]'' novels ''almost'' fit the trope. Though they're dark and oozy and scary, they aren't very dangerous; they're more harbingers of evil than evil itself.
** There are actual demons in that series, the servants of a being called the Void, but there aren't really enough of them to call a "legion" (and they seem to have a hard time working with each other anyway). The highest number of demons ever seen together was ''four'', and that was an explicitly unusual case.
* Demons swarmed out of the Darkwood in [[Simon R. Green]]'s ''[[Blue Moon Rising]]''. In ''Beyond the Blue Moon'', it turned out that {{spoiler|the demons were really humans transformed into murderous monsters, subverting this trope}}.
* ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' features the legions named in a device called an "epic catalogue". Usually used to name the various heroes on the quest (see ''[[The Iliad]]'' for a classic example), this version instead mentions the various gods of other religions who form the forces of Satan.
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** Earlier in the series, Demons had more of a presence in the story, temptations and all, but their place was usurped by the Fae. Lately, only the "Nickleheads" (Fallen Angels with mortal hosts) have made much of a presence for the Down-Below team.
** A big point of the series is that while Good and Evil are real, a lot more to life takes place in the grey, orange, and blue. Being a good person is about always working hard at doing the right thing and being clever about it, not necessarily fighting those Legions of Hell. That said, good, strong people also fight Evil. It's just one of the things they do.
* [[The Legions of Hell]] feature prominently in the ''[[Riftwar Cycle]]'', particularly the ''Serpentwar'' and ''Demonwar'' subseries. Essentially, this setting has reality in metaphysical layers, with each layer being more dangerous than the one above it- any layers below yours can be considered hell (and yes, this means that the mortal world is considered part of hell by angels, who come from the upper levels). Demons come from the fourth and fifth layers of reality below the mortal world, and have repeatedly tried to conquer it in order to feed on the life force of its inhabitants. There's also the Dasati, from the layer immediately below ours, who aren't ''demons'' per se but as an [[Always Chaotic Evil]] [[Proud Warrior Race]] they're still plenty nasty and their reality ''is'' the first level of hell from a human perspective. On the levels ''below'' [[The Legions of Hell]] you start getting ''really'' [[Eldritch Abomination|bad things]].
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** Similarly, the Spectres fulfill this role in ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion]]'', with the Malfeans being the overlords waiting til they get to eat reality. The various servants of the Wyrm in ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' might also count.
** The [[New World of Darkness]] has, as of ''Inferno'', introduced Hell into the setting. Hell plays host to a number of demons that are born of the first fleeting moments of human wickedness, who occasionally come to humans and offer them great power for a little price... For extra fun, ghosts and 'regular' spirits can be corrupted into demons too.
* One of the main factions in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' is Chaos, spewing forth from the Eye of Terror: a rift in spacetime that allows access to the [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|Warp]], a nightmare realm made of the emotions and thoughts of the entirety of sapient life in the galaxy.
** The older ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Fantasy Battle'' game also includes Chaos as a faction, with the same lineup of evil gods. In addition to [[Demonic Invaders]], the Chaos army also includes [[The Corruption|tainted mortal warriors]] and twisted beastmen, all sweeping down from the [[Grim Up North]] and corrupted forests.
** Don't forget the actual [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Legion of the Damned]], who are the ghosts of dead space marines, that show up on the battlefield to aid fellow Marines when the need is great. They sport armor emblazoned with flames and scorched bones, and they are described as being like smoky shadows in appearance, flickering like a flame in the wind as they plod across the battlefield.
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** Exalted also has the Underworld, the inverted shadow of Creation created when the Exalted armies killed some of the Primordials, the beings that created the universe. Killing beings who could not die caused so much chaos that the Exalted decided to seal the rest of the Primordials away instead of killing them, turning them into the Yozis. Because the Primordials were outside the limits of death and time, however, they didn't actually die but instead became creatures now known as the [[Eldritch Abomination|Neverborn]], intent on ending their existence by sending their own legions of the dead to take the rest of Creation down with them.
* ''[[Infernum]]'' is a third-party setting that uses the 3.5 rules for [[Dungeons and Dragons]] and, as the name suggests, this trope is all over it. In fact, the default assumption is that the party members ''are'' demons. It has heavy roots in Christian beliefs, mainly Dante's Inferno, but is twisted and changed into its own unique setting. For a start, the demons are the result of vile crossbreeding experiments conducted between rebellious angels and "spawn" (prototypes of earthly lifeforms) in an effort to breed warrior-slaves... only for the demons to decide they didn't like the idea of being cannon fodder and promptly devour every last one of their "fathers" that didn't run for their life clean out of reality. Many demons at least profess not to believe in Heaven, and almost none believe that it's anything like the humans think it is (the Fallen Angels can't comment, having forgotten everything down to the reason why they Fell in the first place). There's also vague hints of even stranger forces in the multiverse; Benandanti are humans "touched" by nature spirits, whose souls travel to Hell in the guise of werewolves to steal souls to restore the vitality of nature, while Brokenlanders are the ghostly remnants of Quilipoth, another universe so ancient there's nothing left but a single ringworld orbiting the last dying cinder of a star.
* The current story in ''[[Rifts]]'' is the "Minion War", a war between two separate Legions of Hell: The Demon of Hades, and the Deevils of Dyval. It's beginning to spill over into other dimensions.
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has a variety of demons and similar events. The best known ''legions'' scenario was in the Invasion block, which had the biomechanical horrors of Phyrexia invading the plane of Dominaria.
* In ''[[Deadlands]]'', the manitou<ref>a Native American name; Native Americans are generally prominent in the setting</ref> are responsible for creating the Harrowed (intelligent zombies, with the manitou constantly struggling with the original personality for control over the body).
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* The ''[[Diablo]]'' video games are about the Legions of Hell attempting the world's destruction. While in the first part you venture ever deeper into ever more nightmarish caverns, in the second game the last act is in Hell, and in the third game, {{spoiler|the Legions of Hell storm Heaven itself, and you have to go to Hell to shut down the gateways they're using to invade}}. The expansion to the second game is about an attempt to graft Hell and the mortal world together, and there are portals to Hell where you can go and loot stuff.
* Oblivion and the Daedra from ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' games.
** Mehrunes Dagon's Daedra & The Dremora (his favorite servants) are much like this due to their innate destructive impulses. Most lesser Daedra (and what passes for 'animals' in the daedric planes) are hostile to the majority of mortal peoples and wreak major havoc in Tamriel unless their leading Prince restrains them. The Princes themselves largely follow [[Blue and Orange Morality]] (occasionally happening to align with human virtues) and therefore do not fall completely under this trope unless they're in the mood for some genocide.
* The Burning Legion in the ''[[Warcraft]]'' series, an army of demons whose goal is to unmake the universe. They scour all life from the planets they conquer, and the only beings they spare are those whom their leaders deem fit to be "recruited", corrupted and pressed into their crusade.
* A important chunck of backstory for all [[Ogre Battle]] games was once that the Underworld's armies of Demons, Ogres and other such nasties invaded Earth, who were aided by Heaven's armies in the titular "Ogre Battle". The Underworld lost, but parts of the legions can still be summoned by humans. They are often very important plot point, like in [[Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen]], where [[Big Bad|Rashidi]] contacts a General of said Legion, [[Demon Lords and Archdevils|Galf]] or in [[Ogre Battle 64]] is a bunch of Ogres being summoned by {{spoiler|The Holy Lodis Empire}}. However, in battle, you can persuade some of them to join you!
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* In ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]: Hordes of the Underdark'', Mephistopheles forms his army from the souls of betrayers sent to his realm after death
* In ''[[Hellgate:London]]'', demons have decided to start off their invasion of the world in London, and it's the players' task to stop them.
* ''[[Final Fantasy II]]'' outright stated at the beginning that the [[The Emperor|Emperor]] of Palamecia summons these to launch his campaign for [[Take Over the World|world conquest]].
* Members of [[The Legions of Hell]] feature in several ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games. Most notably so in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne|Nocturne]]'', in which the protagonist becomes half-demon, half-human that can survive [[The End of the World as We Know It|The Conception]] thanks to the involvement of [[Louis Cypher|an oddly creepy child and an old man in a wheelchair]]. {{spoiler|And in the game's 'worst'/awesomest ending, said protagonist becomes [[The Dragon|the general of Lucifer's armies]] and leads said Legions to the final battle in the war against Heaven.}}
* [[Devil May Cry|Dante]] foils demonic puppets, demonic sand creatures, demonic clowns, demonic businessmen, demonic cultists, etc.
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* The Ing of ''[[Metroid Prime]] 2'' are made reminiscent of this. They are just transdimensional beeings though. They [[Demonic Possession|possess]] creatures and even come from Dark Aether, a dimension that kills any "light creature" (anything that is not Ing) almost insantly.
* The Darkspawn of ''[[Dragon Age]]'' ''Origins'' are a kind of [[Our Orcs Are Different|plague Orcs]]. The Chantry's version of the Darkspawn taint's origin makes the Darkspawn seem demonic.
** The game does feature actual demons as well, which are evil spirits from the Fade that possess the living or dead bodies of human beings, usually a mage due to their ability to go to the Fade in the first place, and feed upon the psychic energies of living beings. There are [[Sorting Algorithm of Evil|five ranks of demons]]; Rage, Hunger, Sloth, Desire and Pride, in order both of strength and intelligence of the complexity of the emotion they are feeding on. Destroying the host only sends the demon [[Fighting a Shadow|back to whence it came unharmed]], and though some demons are able to manifest in the physical world alone, killing them seems to have the same effect. Their hosts usually mutate when possessed into a [[Humanoid Abomination]] of varying degrees of [[Body Horror]]. Demons are rarer than Darkspawn, but are broadly smarter, stronger and more dangerous.
* The "Hidden Fun Stuff" that you come across if you [[Dug Too Deep|dig too deep]] in ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]''.
** {{spoiler|You have discovered an eerie cavern. The air above the dark stone floor is alive with vortices of purple light and dark, boiling clouds. Seemingly bottomless glowing pits mark the surface.}}
** {{spoiler|Horrifying screams come from the darkness below!}}
*** When this happens, it is usually the end of your fortress. Of course, this being ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'', you could just {{spoiler|1=massacre said legion and ''[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=65024.0 build a fucking colony in their house.]''}}
* The [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Legions of the Damned]] are one of the playable factions in the ''[[Disciples]]'' turn-based strategy series. Their leader, Bethrezen, is given a somewhat sympathetic backstory, but the Legion's [[Mooks]] are unquestionably the nastiest faction in the game.
* The Bydo in ''[[R-Type]]'' are arguably this, even though they were created ''by'' humanity. Thing is, they were locked into ''a pocket dimension'' (read: the future Hell) after they proved to have [[Gone Horribly Right]], and they were able to use it as a staging ground to attack humanity several centuries into the past. Now consider that there isn't all that much reason--at least, nothing mentioned in-game--to believe they would have restricted themselves to just the ''recent'' past...
* In ''[[Bujingai Swordmaster]]'' the earth is overrun with demons of various kind. It's implied that their mooks (seen as golem-like warriors with seals and swords) were once humans turned into monsters by a strange radiation.
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* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Best Friends Forever," the forces of heaven fought back the forces of hell with the help of Kenny and a divine Sony PSP. The legions themselves owed much design- and action-wise to the Orcs from Peter Jackson's ''Lord of the Rings'' films.
* Ghosts, demons and dark gods in ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' (and ''[[Extreme Ghostbusters]]'') come from various places, sometimes other dimensions. The Ghostbusters [[Sealed Evil in a Can|capture them and put them into their "Containment Unit."]] Over the years, the Containment Unit's inner environment has become a type of Hell due to its growing number of inhabitants. Having to journey into the Containment Unit and battle old foes now teamed together, or the threat of the Containment Unit being broken open and bringing about [[The End of the World as We Know It]], are common plots.
* [[The Legions of Hell]] show up as the [[Mooks]] of the fourth season of ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'', with their boss [[Satan|Trigon]] as [[Big Bad]] and [[Like a Badass Out of Hell|Slade]] as [[The Dragon]]. They try to bring about [[The End of the World as We Know It]] and come within a hairsbreadth of succeeding. [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|And yes, this is from a kids show that's normally a lighthearted action-comedy]].
* The setting of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' is heavily implied to be [[Hell]], and in the original pitch it officially was. The citizens are just one of the reasons why its obvious it's [[Hell]], with all the monsters and demons.
* In ''[[Futurama]]: The Beast With a Billion Backs'', Bender recruits an Army of the Damned from the Robot Devil to take over Earth. After every living being in the universe decides to move in with [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven|Yivo]] instead, he leads the army in a [[Pirate]]-themed [[Rage Against the Heavens|attack on Yivo Shklerself]].
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[[Category:Otherness Tropes]]
[[Category:Religion Tropes]]
[[Category:Infernal Tropes]]▼
[[Category:Villains]]
[[Category:The Legions of Hell]]
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