"The Devil is a lawyer," I said one day, "He must be. He believes in contracts."
My friend, a lawyer from Connecticut, had a good counter-argument. However, since I can't remember what he said, I'll just present my side and call it "Truth."
You see, the Devil seems to want to acquire souls. He often tries to tempt people to break laws so that their souls will be damned. This shows that the Devil is well versed in law. Heck, he convinced Eve to screw over her husband by breaking the law.
The Devil will often bargain for souls. Like an insurance salesman, he got a mighty good sales pitch. He's also always ready with contracts. It's that contract thing. You need to have a legal background to write contracts for souls. And you really need to believe in law and order for those contracts to work.
Ah, now I remember a part of what Attorney CT said. The Devil is lawful evil. (16, yes! I made my saving throw.)
When people picture hell, they are actually thinking of anarchy and bedlam. All hell broke loose and stuff. But you cannot conduct legal proceedings and fulfill contracts in a world without order. You need a world where law rules.
The Divine Comedy describes Hell as having nine circles. Each circle represents some eternal damnation for various sins. The fact that there are criteria that determine which sinners go to which circle shows that there is order. You can't have sinners wandering about. They tend to shoplift.
(food break)
In the Devil and Daniel Webster, a farmer sells his soul and signs a contract in exchange for good fortune. Now when it is time to pay up, the farmer hires the famous lawyer Daniel Webster to defend him. The Devil agrees to hold a trial. Webster wins and the farmer is released from the terms of the contract. Now if he was anarchistic, the Devil would have just said, "screw it," and take the farmer's soul. But the Devil is not an anarchist. He abides by the verdict of the jury.
The Devil Went Down to Georgia shows that the Devil must obey some unwritten laws. He doesn't just go down to Georgia and steal souls. No. He goes down and makes deals and contracts based on fiddle playing. The Devil lost the fiddle playing contest since he really prefers woodwinds, but he still kept his end of the bargain. A chaotic evil devil would have bailed without paying.
In the movie Crossroads (the blues one, not the one with the then pretty Spears) Ralph Macchio plays in a guitar duel against the Devil's champion. Ralph wins and the Devil cancels the contract on the old-dude-who-tricked-Ralph's soul. Now if he wasn't law abiding, he would have just killed Ralph and taken the old guy's soul just for kicks. Oh wait. Killing Ralph would have been a good thing which would cause a paradox.
Faust, Bedazzeled, Constantine, etc. Let's face it. The Devil believes in law and order. He's a lawyer.
Then again, now that I think about it... it might be unfair to the Devil to call him a lawyer.
(Lots of effort for a lame lawyer joke.)
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