My personal cannon has Zariel arriving as an angel with a human warband, being defeated and corrupted to be put in place as archdevil, later imprisoned and usurped by Bel, then taken from captivity and put back in power when Bel lost Asmo's favor. Only problem with that history is it squashes a whole "corruption - first period as archdevil - brief takeover by Bel - Zariel back in power " sequence into a shorter timespan than feels right for the overall pace of devil politics.
My theory about her fall and Ride is more along the lines that Asmodeus was behind it all, manipulating Zariel into doing this from the start. We know that Zariel, even as an angel, had become hotheaded, aggressive, even a bit bloodthirsty, and wanted the celestials to go to war, but was forbidden from doing so. We also know that Zariel was present at the Trial of Asmodeus, way back in cosmic history, where Asmodeus made his case to the angels (and even convinced Primus) that he was justified in corrupting mortals because they were used in the blood war to fight the demons, and that Zariel even caused a fight with the other angels by being hotheaded at the trial. So I think that Asmodeus saw her as a potential target to recruit and has been working on turning her ever since then by stoking her anger and carelessness. This eventually involved letting some demons led by Yeenoghu escape from the Blood War into the Material Realm, knowing that this would push her over the edge and she'd recklessly storm into the lower planes for revenge, at which point she could be captured, fully corrupted, and turned to serve him. For the timeline's sake, and because it feels off to me to have the Ride take place so recently in history, I think it works better to change the date and say that the Ride happened many hundreds or even thousands of years ago. That lets the other stories about Zariel and Bel fighting over leadership of Avernus simply happen after she fell, rather than have to work a story about two Zariels or the ride being a act.
8:59 Pausing here, but you'll need a compelling reason why Asmodeus wouldn't want the war taking place at LEAST in Gehenna where casualties can be sent back to Baator rather than facing True Death.
I thought this project was dead. Welcome back.
Welcome back. Thanks.
It's been so long. Good to see a new one.
"Do not pity the fallen angel. Fallen angels survive the fall. How many souls did Zariel bring down with her?"
MORDENKAINEN
My personal cannon has Zariel arriving as an angel with a human warband, being defeated and corrupted to be put in place as archdevil, later imprisoned and usurped by Bel, then taken from captivity and put back in power when Bel lost Asmo's favor. Only problem with that history is it squashes a whole "corruption - first period as archdevil - brief takeover by Bel - Zariel back in power " sequence into a shorter timespan than feels right for the overall pace of devil politics.
My theory about her fall and Ride is more along the lines that Asmodeus was behind it all, manipulating Zariel into doing this from the start. We know that Zariel, even as an angel, had become hotheaded, aggressive, even a bit bloodthirsty, and wanted the celestials to go to war, but was forbidden from doing so. We also know that Zariel was present at the Trial of Asmodeus, way back in cosmic history, where Asmodeus made his case to the angels (and even convinced Primus) that he was justified in corrupting mortals because they were used in the blood war to fight the demons, and that Zariel even caused a fight with the other angels by being hotheaded at the trial. So I think that Asmodeus saw her as a potential target to recruit and has been working on turning her ever since then by stoking her anger and carelessness. This eventually involved letting some demons led by Yeenoghu escape from the Blood War into the Material Realm, knowing that this would push her over the edge and she'd recklessly storm into the lower planes for revenge, at which point she could be captured, fully corrupted, and turned to serve him.
For the timeline's sake, and because it feels off to me to have the Ride take place so recently in history, I think it works better to change the date and say that the Ride happened many hundreds or even thousands of years ago. That lets the other stories about Zariel and Bel fighting over leadership of Avernus simply happen after she fell, rather than have to work a story about two Zariels or the ride being a act.
8:59 Pausing here, but you'll need a compelling reason why Asmodeus wouldn't want the war taking place at LEAST in Gehenna where casualties can be sent back to Baator rather than facing True Death.
Any chance you make a video on Bel?
Pretty likely, I've probably mentioned him by name more than anyone but Asmodeus so far
That was good no thanks to you!
Slept on series