Why would somebody make a deal with an inherently evil creature

>>48822205
Well you can ask God really nicely to help, or you can go ask Firey McSoulfucker to actually get shit done for you no questions asked.

Also, not all settings have a benevolent upper deity, but they keep the demons and devils and their motif from Christianity.

Also, le tip.

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>>48822205
Sure, morality is subjective and one man's evil is another man's justice, ect. ect.

The real question is whether alignments in general can ever be portrayed as anything but retarded?

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>>48822205
>Omni-benevolent
>Gets pissed at someone
Choose one

>>48822205
You don't have to. People do stupid and short-sighted things all the time, no reason that shouldn't include wizards or whatever.

Because they're so desperate they'll damn their eternal soul to reach their goals.

Because they think they're clever enough to get out of the contract.

Because they think they're righteous enough for their god to not let them go to hell.

Because they're impulsive, short-term thinkers.

Because they think Hell won't be that bad.

>>48822205
This is why (among other reasons) necromancers try to become liches. The majority of settings have wizards using their magic to live a very long time. They're betting they can fix things before they have to pay, or get a favor from a god.

>>48822205
Depends on the setting. And the context.

>Thats a sweet-ass sword!

>>48822423
>Because they think they're clever enough to get out of the contract.
>Because they think Hell won't be that bad.

>tfw someone does manage to out-clever a demon
>tfw someone genuinely enjoys Hell

BBEG material.

Because the 'evil' entity is offering what looks like help while the omni-benevolent being isn't.

>>48822234
>Firey McSoulfucker
I'm gonna use that name.

>>48822205
You live in a word where people cut their own dicks off daily for various retarded reasons.

It's really not a big stretch

>>48822562
Well if you, for example, witnessed your sister being reverse mouthfucked through her nape and you wish to do something with it, you won't concern yourself with repercussions. This is why damned are called damned.

>>48822205
The big irony is that someone willing to make a deal with the devil should logically already deserve to go to hell, meaning the devil doesn't even have to make the deal.

>>48822788
This isn't christianity, hell isn't a ruly place. A devil doesn't buy your soul for it to just go to hell, a devil pact binds your soul to that specific devil/demon. That's also why you make a contract with an actual devil instead of "evilness" in general, and why you can even make the pact. Hell doesn't care about you, but any soul a single devil has makes him stronger.

>>48822788
Apart from the absolution via redemption; yes your correct but just confess your sinsurance and ask for redemption and pop into limbo you go.

>>48822205
Most D&D settings, and derivatives thereof, treat souls as a sort of "Malleable Conciousness". When a mortal dies, their soul goes to an Outer Plane and becomes a minor Divine/Infernal being. Sometimes retaining conciouness, sometimes not. In the latter style, maybe the souls seller draws enough of a distinction between themselves and their resulting after-life being to just not give a shit about it. But if it's the previous, another constant of the genre is that souls can "Upgrade" themselves once they're a Divine/Fiend by pleasing their master, or just being particularly good at evil fuckery. So, they could justify their actions by believing that they'll be one of the exceptional servants who eventually becomes a mega-demon.

>>48822205
Most of the time folks are tricked into it. Devils are decievers and will often try to make the deal seeming like something other than the spawn of fucking Asmodeus. The deal may be vague or complicated, or made in a desperate or "heat of the moment" kind of situation. Anything to have the person giving their soul from thinking any about it and realizing what they've done.

Not very often the red horned satans will just walk up and say "I can give you a billion dollars if you"ll let me cornhole you with barbwire made of acid spiders for the rest of eternity when you die"

>>48822205
Have you ever heard of Faust? or Doctor Faustus if you're into plays, but the short and narrow is a dude makes a pact with a demon for hidden/forbidden knowledge; dicks around with it for years, ponders redemption through Christ to get out of pact, doesn't, gets dragged to hell by demons. Lots of philosophical debates about fate, God, and human nature to be had. Basically it's tricky and if you've made a deal with said demon just finding a way out is hard and probably not likely but you do it as a sort in the moment kind of thing. Like you want to be best at blues music, and this is the fastest way to do it.

I'm actually making a short story all about soul stealing (anima, ad iRe-label it).

Can anyone point to instances of ways daemons interacted with humans that I could recast as soul stealing even if it wasn't? (For example incubi/succubi didn't fuck people's souls out historically but it works well enough in inspired works)

>>48822205
If they are in a situation where what they are going to lose otherwise is more important to them than their own life.

>>48822236
God damnit anon this is not an alignment thread !

>>48822205
Because there's no good-aligned beings that would grant you that power boost at the cost of your soul. Also, in plenty of settings there's ways to directly ascend into a devil/daemon/demon yourself. Sell your soul, become one of the aforementioned before you die, and boom, you're now an immortal fucker that will only grow in time as time passes.

>>48823160
Okay, it's been a while since I've seen La Damnation de Faust and it's been even longer since I've read Faust, but I'm pretty sure one of the major points was that his waifu gets his soul whisked to heaven.

>>48822205

Depends on the setting. Are the evil demons still relatively trustworthy? Will they always screw you over, or abide by the rules of the contract you sign? Does a soul have a set value?

Once, I played with the idea of a setting where you could only get magic by being given it by a more powerful being. Mortal users could pass it to each other but it got weaker each generation; for full power, you needed a god or demon to empower you. I came up with the notion of a society of wizards/warlocks who LOANED their souls for power. Signed it away, got the power, and had an arrangement with their demon to provide an equivalent service (with interest) in exchange for getting their soul back. So long as they managed that before they died they were golden on the demon front.

>>48822704

Surely that only happens once, not daily? Are we dealing with some kind of half-troll harem guards re-castrating themselves every day or what?

>>48823326
It's a legend, so it's pointless to discuss without acknowledging specific sources. Marlowe's is what's being discussed in that post, but in Goethe's take, yeah, that's totally right.