Religious and Cultural Imagery in "The Devil from Hell"

This drama has created a rich (under)world using imagery from classic literature, demon lore, Roman mythology, Greek and Latin language, Christianity, opera and classical music and maybe even a few nods to well-known  horror movies. It is really impressive how rich and deep this drama's setting truly is.

I started a thread on X to keep track of all of these occurrences and wanted to share my findings to better illuminate this setting, and maybe even help with theorizing.  Because this world seems to be created primarily using a Christian lens, I have explained different scenes using Christian commentary. 

The thread is at https://x.com/SandiKT/status/1840729016401109367. I started just making a normal thread, but I realized it was getting too long, so I'm going to start grouping them by episodes. If you check it out, please feel free to let me your thoughts. I'm always on the lookout for concepts I may have overlooked that needs explaining. 

thank you for this! i always love threads like that <3

Really interesting! Didn't know a lot of the biblical things. Ep 1 reminded me a lot of this old anime Jigoku Shoujo(mainly becuase Baels a spider) and typical hell structure with Judge and court which turned out to be so common in so many cultures. 

One thing I wonder when I searched with the korean spelling for Kylum(카일룸) it came up as Caelum(means "heaven"; also a constellations name meaning 'chisel') instead as theres some company named such (concept of the Kylum immortalitys similar to alchemy type something). Might be coincidence theres a Latin phrase "Fiat Justitia Ruat Caelum " meaning "let justice be done though the heavens fall"(ruat=fall/ruin) which is latin equivalent to that Italian writing on plinth- "Anche se il cielo non dovesse..." which are quite on-brand. 

 Sakt:

Are you on Twitter? Your blurb on Kylum is really fascinating, and I'd like to add in your quote to the thread and give you credit. (I also did a search on the word but didn't come up with anything.) Otherwise, I can link you from here. 

Ah the spider in Hell Girl wasn't Bael but supposedly based on Satan nd was the master of hell who kept the titular hell girl in infinite punishment reaping sinner's souls. It had other forms too but mainly appeared as a spider, supposed to have something to do with the numbers 8/4's multiples. 

I'm not on twitter and you may add it, though its more conjecture than certain. I got the korean spelling from https://namu.wiki/w/지옥(지옥에서%20온%20판사), -> 카일룸. The first english translation I found on googling was the name of a condo company who spelled that exact part of their name "Caelum" for heaven. Theres a constellation also named Caelum but is spelled differently with its meaning which is 'chisel' constellation.