The Infernal Lords XXIX: Belial

“I’ve been trying to participate in masquerades:
The throne’s been empty for too long.
Paradise for those who play along
And the fortunate ones.

I’ve been begging for the public eye, now watch me fly:
Can you see what I’ve become?”
[ Fate – Tristania ]

Duke Belial is one of the best known and politically prominent figures of Hell. Ironically enough, he was the Chief of Virtues while in Heaven, but has since become one of the most infamous Demons of all time, his deeds being a legend even in Hell itself. Long before the Great Heavenly War began, he openly defied Yahweh’s laws and orchestrated many schemes with his Second-in-Command, Princess Lilith, recruiting Angels to Emperor Lucifer’s cause and even acting as a decoy – convincingly pretending he was the one organising the sedition so that the Supreme Angel could work undisturbed. After his Fall he styled himself the Lord of Deceit and has now turned into one of the Seven Satans of the First-Level as the Demon of Pride. He’s the best liar the world has ever known, even greater than Countess Jezebeth herself, who’s part of his retinue.
Due to the Sin he embodies, he’s a great connoisseur of Yahweh and his ways, and has proved his value with countless acts, ranging from petty to grand, to peeve his rather quick temper, most often using mankind while remaining in the shadows himself. To name a few, he plotted together with Queen Barbelo and Marquis Leviathan to create the Tree of Knowledge drama in Eden, taught mankind the pleasures of fineries and embellishment, suggested that they build the Tower of Babel, caused the Midianites idolatry incident, inspired the crafting of the Golden Calf with gold he stole from Count Mammon’s own reservoir, inspired countless other cases of idolatry throughout history and planned hundreds of other ploys. But his true masterpiece was the Sodom and Gomorrah conspiracy, which he made up all by himself: he deceived the inhabitants of the two cities into abandoning any kind of morals to test the depth Yaweh’s creation could reach, watching them indulge in such depravity that even Pandemonium itself had never seen, and staining the Earth so deeply and beyond redemption that his name became a legend and no creature in Heaven or Hell is said not to know it. He receives countless (and mostly incorrect) mentions in mankind’s texts, which often identify him as “the” Satan.
Belial is the most elegant and sophisticated Demon of the Court, regarded as the Arbiter Elegantiarum of Pandemonium. This makes him a rival of Marquis Adramelech, whom Duke Belial enjoys teasing and ridiculing whenever he gets the occasion, especially in public or in front of Emperor Lucifer; the two even struggled for the position as the Satan of Pride, but Duke Belial easily overcame his rival. He also secured a position as an Astral Demon, mastering the astrological influence of Jupiter.
Many courters turn to him for matters of etiquette, and he’s always the one to write important speeches for others and lead the most sophisticated celebrations. The Demons of Arts work under his close direction and he takes a particular liking to Count Kobal due to their sharing of a quick wit and sharp tongue. Among others, he greatly enjoys the company of Princess Lilith and her sister, Marquise Naamah, as well as that of the debauched Marquis Rosiel. Marquise Decarabia is also part of his retinue, as she often turns to him for advice about floral decoration at Court, and he’s one of the few secret-keepers of Duke Xaphan’s affair with Queen Barbelo. He’s a good comrades with Count Asmodeus, whom he often works with on Earth, but his best friend is definitely Duke Astaroth, mainly due to the latter’s indolent love of vain things as a mean of wasting time and their shared interest in the most material pleasures of life.

Belial: development and symbolysm

Credits:

Photo, concept, manipulation, frame design: GothicNarcissus Photography
Model, hair, make up: Antonio Grimaldi
Styling: GothicNarcissus Photography and Antonio Grimaldi
Additional resources: Meltys-Stock (wings), Myruso (wallpaper)

While he was among the first Demons I decided to include in the project, there’s a special reason why I left Belial as the last Infernal Lord in the series except for Lucifer: he’s one of my favourite Demons.
Okay, not exactly: the real reason is it had as troubled a history as Rosiel’s, much to my dismay. But one of my favourites he is indeed and, at long last, here he comes.

Belial from Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary.

Like many of the most prominent Demons, I came across Belial – you guess it – from Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary. One of the most intriguing and best written characters in the manga, Belial kicked ass, jump-started some of my favourite plotlines, completely blurred gender binarism and provided some of the best lines in the manga. Of course, when I started planning a series about Demons, he was one of my top-priority researches.
Contrary to most Demons, there’s so much information about Belial that I didn’t even know where to begin when building his character. According to the most accepted etymology, the name means “worthless” and is a term which occurs a few times in the Old Testament. It’s not related to a specific entity, though, but only used to denote sinful people in the idiomatic phrase “sons of belial”.
The first instance of Belial as a being comes from the later Dead Sea Scrolls, which depict him as an “angel of darkness”, often citing him as the Prince of Darkness himself. Other texts, such as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs or the Ascension of Isaiah also identify Belial as Satan, or generally as a messenger of darkness who’s opposed to Yahweh.
The New Testament mostly omits the term altogether, and Belial is only named by Paul of Tarsus as an enemy of Jesus; in the apocryphal Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew, he’s one of the Angels cast out of Heaven. The concept of Belial as a being rather than a concept was thus solidified, but it’s not until the later esoteric grimoires that he starts to be fully sketched out as a Demon of his own.

Belial summoned with his lieutenant by King Solomon, author unknown.

Sebastian Michaelis calls him Belias, identifies him as the former Prince of Virtues and links him to arrogance, vanity and wantonness. While conspicuously absent from Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal, he appears in both the Lesser Key Of Solomon and the Book of Abramelin as a particularly high-ranking figure, and one of the few to retain an angelic form when summoned.
So, having to cherrypick from all this information, I first wrote down what would fit my own canon (fallen Angel, former Virtue, Demon of Pride) and then decided to work his being identified as “the” Devil by having him being so infamous that mankind incorrectly calls him that. I also decided to make him the grey eminence behind the most infamous cases of pride and idolatry from the Bible, and shot out to Kaori Yuki’s character linking him to the Sodom and Gomorrah incident.

Belial from Kaori Yuki’s Angel Sanctuary.

You might notice that, overall, the final photo has more of an old-school, goth vibe compared to the later works in the series: that’s because I came up with the general idea basically on day one of the project, back in 2009, when I was rocking guyliner and leather cuffs in my everyday life. Coming up with the visuals for the Demon of Pride and Vanity was rather easy; like Astaroth, Kaori Yuki’s version of the character was strongly influential, especially the very fitting illustration above. I immediately opted for butterfly wings rather than feathered ones because butterflies often symbolise vanity, and because that would immediately make Belial stand out from the other Demons (I hadn’t come up with Xaphan and Decarabia yet, so lepidoptera-winged Belial was unique back then). I also wanted him to be fancily dressed in black to emphasise the Sin he represents and I was adamant that he’d have a large-brimmed hat both as a direct shot out to Belial’s Mad Hatter persona in Angel Sanctuary and because it would make a sort of visual black halo around his head, underlining his very prestigious rank.
I’m not sure how much make up my original idea  had, but I think at some point I considered something quite heavy, but not quite as clownesque as Kaori Yuki’s; anyway, that’s one of the parts that got toned down the most once I started drifting away from strict gothic fashion, as having a black-clad figure on a purple background with heavy eye make up would be beyond cliché nowadays. One thing that was clear from day one was the theme colour, purple, which is widely associated with pride and vanity, as well as royalty. Being in the Lesser Key of Solomon, Belial already ha his own seal, so I didn’t have to come up with one of my own.
With all the basics in place, the background half-ready and a quick characterisation to eventually expand upon, all I had to do was cast the role and shoot it… which is where things got spectacularly derailed.

I’ve mentioned that Belial’s history was very similar to Rosiel’s in that, without going into too much detail, I initially cast one of my best friends due to our shared love for Kaori Yuki’s character, some inside jokes that doubled as shot outs, and so on. For the first few years, we had some geographic difficulties that prevented us from shooting (which is hilarious in hindsight, considering I ended up shooting it in Naples anyway), but I didn’t really mind because I was shooting Demons left, right and centre so Belial could wait, even if it was one of my favourites; then my friend moved closer, but things kept coming up from both sides and we never really got down to organising the shoot. By 2016, seven years into the project, there were only Rosiel, Belial and the still uncast Lucifer to go, and it was high time to do something about that. While I was recasting Rosiel out of sheer frustration, I decided to face the fact that I stopped pushing the matter with Belial because I’d had second thoughts for a while. So I took a deep breath, talked to my friend, bailed out and recast the role altogether.

Belial draft from early 2016.

By that time, I had long since realised that my friend Antonio Grimaldi was physically the closest a person could get to my idea of Belial. I’d been following his work for a while on social media and he was very pretty, always stylish and had that intensity I wanted my character to have. Once I had settled the matter with my other friend, Antonio and I had some preliminary talks (I did the sketch above to show him my basic idea), he agreed to take part in the project and we started organising the actual shoot. The idea was to meet more or less midway in Rome, and we scheduled a shoot in November 2016, when I had to go there for an unrelated event. The meeting fell through almost last minute due to things coming up from the both of us and then… well, then 2017 happened.
Long story short, 2017 wasn’t my best year in the mental health department. There were a lot of things at play then: on the one hand, I had had so many setbacks for the whole span of the Infernal Lords project that I was half-willing to give it up altogether. Then, to shoot Belial specifically I had to ask my friend Ginevra for hospitality in Rome and I really felt uncomfortable in forcing my presence on someone; and I had to find a weekend when both she and Antonio were available. Also, I was intimidated by Antonio: I mean, just look at him – he’s modelling agency material, who the hell did I think I was to ask him to model for me? And I had grown a bit uncomfortable in sharing my ideas on such a controversial theme with “normies” out there, lest they thought I was the mess I actually am – read, I had become so insicure that I was doubting my vision. So I just projected my insecurities into thinking Antonio had somehow changed his mind and didn’t know how to tell me, or something like that, when there was no indication of that aside from both of us not being great at keeping in touch on the internet.
It took me one more year and a half, lots of reassurance from Ginevra that I wasn’t an unwanted guest, a session with my therapist and a couple of tarot readings to finally get me to pick a weekend, write to everybody and organise the set. And given my luck with the rest of the project, I was a total train wreck for the two weeks leading up to the trip because I was expecting anything to go wrong and dreading to get yet another disappointment. I literally refused to get my hopes up until the moment I was in Naples with Antonio.

Turns out my worries were totally pointless, of course: first because Antonio is, like, the sweetest cinnamon roll ever and a very lovely person to talk and hang around with; second because, as soon as I reminded him of what wacky project I was going to have him pose for, he almost got more enthusiastic than me.
Contrary to my usual method, we warmed up with a few random shots before we came down to Belial and the best thing about Antonio is just how ridiculously photogenic he is: I’m not kidding, he’s Vogue Hommes material. He’s able to look effortlessly intense, striking a dramatic pose with a brooding expression and still looking like he’s not even trying, like he’s always like that and I just caught him thinking of something else. By the time we got to shooting the Demon, I was so impressed by his work that I just gave him free rein with the pose, other than the hand gesture, and the result is exactly what Belial should look like: vaguely mysterious, effortlessly sophisticated, naturally elegant, the testimonial for the Antichrist Couture on Vogue Pandemonium.
I’m not kidding or overstating: the moment I saw that photo in my camera LCD, suddenly it was all worth it. All the wait and the year-and-a-half postponement and the worries and doubts, and the stress I made up and inflicted upon myself in the few weeks leading up to it. That’s the way I always wanted Belial to look, straight out of my head.

And so, here we are. I have changed the theme song for this work a bagillion times until I settled on Fate by Tristania because it fits pretty well the character. That said, the work is out and the Demon of Pride might be one of the ones I’m the proudest of. It’s the beginning of the end of the Infernal Lords and I’m glad it’s on such a high note. I’ll do my best to top that with Lucifer, when I’ll finally get down to him as well.

Big Boys, They Need To Cry (Wings)

“You’ve been suffering,
Hiding your pain.
Unshed tears on the edge,
“Just water under the bridge”, you say.

Is it too late
To make myself a safe place?
I could not see
The dangers, the sacrifices
You were making.

Hurt you, hurt me,
Hurt you. Never meant to
Hurt you, hurt me.
I need to make myself a safe place
For you to cry, baby,
‘Cause sometimes
Big boys, they need to cry.

So we built you some wings
To help you to flee
From your demanding
Dark angel and me.

Is it too late
To make myself a safe place?
I went too far
When we flew too close
To our star.

It hurt you, hurt me,
Hurt you. Never meant to
Hurt you, hurt me.
I need to make myself a safe place
For you to cry, baby,
To cry, baby,
‘Cause sometimes
Big boys, they need to cry.
‘Cause sometimes
Big boys, they need to cry.”

[ Wings – Tori Amos ]

I feel like I should spend a few words on this photo, if only for how much work it took me and what satisfaction it brought me in the end.

So, Tori Amos’ latest album, Native Invader, flooded my mind with images, one of which is this one. I didn’t really sit down and think like I often do, I just visualised something and decided to go for it. This is why I didn’t really consider the whole metaphor in the lyrics when I came up with this image: what really got me about this song is the part about big boys needing to cry, i.e. get in touch with their emotions and fragility, which I find a very important message nowadays. Also, I liked the idea of trying to become someone’s safe place even if there’s been some disagreement and mutual hurting: it’s never too late to turn around and mend a relationship.
This is pretty much what inspired me: the eponymous wings are not attached to the protagonist so he can fly away as in the lyrics, but to the narrator, laid down as a shelter of sort so the protagonist can let himself feel fragile. It was a compelling image but I really didn’t know how to pull it off: nine years of Infernal Lords have taught me how difficult it is to find realistic wings for shooting, unless I turn to full-blown digital art.

And that’s pretty much what I did: instead of having actual wings, in real life or added digitally, I decided to draw them as if I were drawing on a photo with markers.
I came up with this idea while listening to another couple of songs: first came Bang and then Climb. I envisioned both as photograph-drawing hybrids, and then I felt like Reindeer King and Wildwood could work in a similar style, too. So why not Wings? So next thing I knew, I had a little series of visually homogenous works ready to be done.

I’ll be honest: this was a very difficult image to pull off. Not the photo per se which, once I did some location scouting, was one of the smoothest self-portraits I ever took, but the post-production was massive. I honestly didn’t even know if I was skilled enough to do it, as drawing is not my strongest suit. It took me three solid evening of work and I’m sure that someone with more practice with a graphic tablet would have done it in half the time and a tenth of the effort, but having drawn something that actually looks good, blends with the photo and is exactly what I envisioned is a massive self-confidence fix. Perhaps I really am capable of doing more than I think and am just too scared to try out!

Now, before this turns into the billionth unfinished long-term project, I’m not really making big plans about it. I’m not even going to do the whole album as some songs I really don’t like, or they just don’t speak to me. I’m just taking it as it is and doing what I can when I can.
On a side note about the title: Wings is going to be a work in my Inspiration Hurts series, so I decided to keep that as a subtitle while using the line that caught my attention as the main one. This is also going to happen if I decide to take the other photos I have in mind.