Welcome to hell! Looks like you've been a bad boy or girl and wound up here. I'm sorry about that. You must have done something really, really bad. Like stab a pagan, genocidal slaver /slash/ dictator. If you do that, you'll be right at the center of hell. At least according to Dante, who is a fucking idiot.
Still, for some reason they teach his worthless political propaganda in history class, despite that (rather being great literature) The Divine Comedy is just some petty bullshit by a moron who wanted to say everyone he didn't like was in hell and that God's guide through heaven was some dead girl who he used to have a sad, pathetic crush on, but who probably never even knew he was.
Sorry. I feel like I've ranted about this before. Where was I? Oh right. The Inferno. Here are the nine circles of hell, ranked. Ranked how? By how interesting they are. Which is hard, because several of these circles are just plain stupid.
9. Eighth Circle (Fraud)
Okay, so for some reason "fraud" is now a
worse sin than murder because this is one circle down from "Violence," which includes murderers.
Here, Dante divides the fraudulent into ten types of people and no way
do I have time to explain the dumb-ass reasoning behind Dante's dumb-ass
categorizations. He throws these ten types of people into ten different
ditches. They get various punishments including being whipped or hacked
apart for eternity by demons, steeped deep in shit, have their feet
burned, be horribly contorted, thrown in a lake of boiling pitch, bitten
by snakes, etc. There is just too much shit going on in this circle of
hell and Dante goes into various extended rants up on a pedestal about
mundane political nonsense. This one is the worst because Dante clearly was running out of circles and was like, "Oh shit! There are only nine circles? I can't rewrite this shit because Word Processors haven't been created yet and I wrote 'nine' earlier! Fuck fuck fuck! I guess I'm just going to create a leftover circle of hell that throws all sorts of random bullshit in it!"
8. Fifth Circle (Anger)
In the swampy, stinky waters of the River Styx - the wrathful are forced to fight on top of the slimy water while the sullen (basically people who are wrathful but too lazy to actually do anything) are drowning beneath it. There, these people all find no joy. Really? That's sort of messed up. Especially the "sullen" thing. Basically if you get angry and control yourself and do nothing about it, Dante says you still go to hell for being "sullen." Fuck you, Dante. Also, this one is BORING.
7. First Circle (Limbo)
Limbo is a castle with seven gates that represent the seven virtues. Why, this doesn't sound that bad at all. If I was told that I was going to go to hell, and hell just ended up being a pretty normal-looking castle... I'd be okay with that. I mean rich people specifically build castles to live in! This is a place where people actually want to go. I can't imagine leading a life of crime and the judge sentencing me to live for eternity in a castle with seven gates. I'd be like, "Dude, sweet!" Still, I can't rank this one that high since it seems like Dante put zero thought into it, other than, "Uhh... castle?"
6. Seventh Circle (Violence)
So how is violence different than Anger/Wrath? I mean I understand in principle, but in the Fifth Circle, Dante explicitly called out "the wrathful" as angry people who take action on their anger, which I assume means through violence. Whatever. What happens here? Well, actually different things because there are three rings to the Seventh Circle. In the outer ring are murderers, who sink in a boiling river of blood and fire. In the middle ring are people who committed suicide, and who are turned into trees that are fed on by harpies. Finally, in the inner ring are the blasphemers, sodomites and usurers who are placed in a burning plain of sand with burning rain falling from the sky. Suicides? Sodomites? Yep. Of course Dante hates people who kill themselves and gays too. As with the Eighth Circle, here Dante is just scatter-brained and tries to throw in too much.
5. Ninth Circle (Treachery)
The greatest sin according to Dante is
treachery. So I guess it's worse than murder again, huh? Here in the deepest
level of hell, it's actually not hot - it's cold. A frozen lake called
Cocytus, in fact. I guess that aspect about the Ninth and final Circle makes it sort of iconic. But it's also iconically stupid. Dante divides things up into four different "rounds,"
including traitors to kin (encased in ice up to their necks), traitors
to country (same as above, but up to their head rather than neck so they
can't bend their heads to shield their faces from freezing wind),
traitors to guests (lying facing up in the ice for their tears to
freeze), and the traitors to lords (fully encapsulated in ice in
twisted, distorted positions). In addition to these four is the "center"
of hell where Satan lives, also encased in ice. This is all very stupid.
4. Third Circle (Gluttony)
Being forced to live in a vile, putrid
slush made of never ending ice-rain while Cerberus, a worm, guards you
to make sure you don't leave. Yeah, this is starting to sound pretty
bad. The jump from the Second Circle to the Third is a pretty big one. A
few questions though. First - Cerberus is one of the most famous
characters in mythology and is clearly a three-headed dog. Everyone
knows that. So why the hell is he a worm here? Did Dante not bother to
even do the slightest bit of research? Probably not. Second question -
how is the vile, putrid slush made of ice rain? I'd think that ice rain
would be pretty clean. I mean it's ice. The natural process of
evaporation should make any condensation that comes down later
relatively pure. Okay, I know there are exceptions to this. Did Dante
foresee acid rain?
3. Fourth Circle (Greed)
Here, the greedy people are divided onto two sides. The hoarders (who needlessly collected wealth and did nothing with it) and the spenders (who needlessly collected wealth and lavishly spent it). The two sides joust against one another for all eternity, in matches that are refereed by Plutus, who is apparently different from Pluto. All-in-all, this doesn't seem that bad. A jousting competition? I'd much rather have a lance fight than be trapped on putrid slush. Any gluttons out there should try to also be greedy, so they can hope to get sent down a level to what is basically a fun-ass Renaissance Faire.
2. Sixth Circle (Heresy)
Being surrounded by fire actually looks sort of cool.
Heresy? Now we're getting somewhere! This one sounds like a pretty awesome sin. This has got to be some meaty punishment, eh? Let's see... ah... it is "being trapped in flaming tombs for all eternity." HOLY SHIT! That's hardcore, Dante. Hard. Core. I like the fire stuff.
1. Second Circle (Lust)
The terrible fate you will receive for the unforgivable sin of lust is being blown by strong winds that never allow you to rest or find peace. Yep. As punishment for being lustful, you're going to get BLOWN FOREVER. Hahaha, yeaaaaah. "I'm trying to sleep but can't because I keep getting BLOWN." The Second and First Circles of Hell sound pretty damn fun. Get blown. Hang out in a castle. Maybe see if you can see the Fourth Circle and watch some jousting.
Still, for some reason they teach his worthless political propaganda in history class, despite that (rather being great literature) The Divine Comedy is just some petty bullshit by a moron who wanted to say everyone he didn't like was in hell and that God's guide through heaven was some dead girl who he used to have a sad, pathetic crush on, but who probably never even knew he was.
Sorry. I feel like I've ranted about this before. Where was I? Oh right. The Inferno. Here are the nine circles of hell, ranked. Ranked how? By how interesting they are. Which is hard, because several of these circles are just plain stupid.
9. Eighth Circle (Fraud)
 |
| Oh, this looks like fun. |
- Notable Residents: Dante spends forever in the Eighth Circle of hell, what with him droning on about the ten damn categories of it. He loves putting Popes here. This place is a Pope convention. Mixed up with a good collection of Greco-Roman mythological figures. Which still continues to make so sense because Dante is supposed to be a Christian and not actually believe in pagan myths. Dante is a pretty terrible Christian. Oh, there is also a category here called "seducers," so you can bet Dante is going to get his extreme misogyny on (see also: #1).
8. Fifth Circle (Anger)
In the swampy, stinky waters of the River Styx - the wrathful are forced to fight on top of the slimy water while the sullen (basically people who are wrathful but too lazy to actually do anything) are drowning beneath it. There, these people all find no joy. Really? That's sort of messed up. Especially the "sullen" thing. Basically if you get angry and control yourself and do nothing about it, Dante says you still go to hell for being "sullen." Fuck you, Dante. Also, this one is BORING.
- Notable Residents: Filippo Argenti, a Florentine politician who once confiscated Dante’s property. Yep. Dante is such a petty, fucking sad loser that after he failed to pay his bills and after the repo man took his shit, he wrote a mopey, emo journal entry saying that the repo man now lives in hell for all eternity. Then people found this sad journal and published it and--to this day--force kids to read Dante whine about people who he thought were mean to him. It sounds like the person who is REALLY angry is Dante, not Filippo.
7. First Circle (Limbo)
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| Behold the hellish torture of... A CASTLE! OoOoOoo! |
- Notable Residents: Pretty much all your old-time ancient Greek philosophers. Almost anyone from before Jesus. Did you live a good and moral life where you saved people, spread knowledge and hope, and fought evil? Too bad, loser. You're still in hell for not being Christian! You know who else is here? A genocidal slaver /slash/ dictator. Yep. Murder, own slaves and try to become dictator for life and you get a light slap on the wrist in the mildest form of hell.
6. Seventh Circle (Violence)
So how is violence different than Anger/Wrath? I mean I understand in principle, but in the Fifth Circle, Dante explicitly called out "the wrathful" as angry people who take action on their anger, which I assume means through violence. Whatever. What happens here? Well, actually different things because there are three rings to the Seventh Circle. In the outer ring are murderers, who sink in a boiling river of blood and fire. In the middle ring are people who committed suicide, and who are turned into trees that are fed on by harpies. Finally, in the inner ring are the blasphemers, sodomites and usurers who are placed in a burning plain of sand with burning rain falling from the sky. Suicides? Sodomites? Yep. Of course Dante hates people who kill themselves and gays too. As with the Eighth Circle, here Dante is just scatter-brained and tries to throw in too much.
- Notable Residents: Alexander the Great. Oh, Dante also basically takes a few random historical and contemporary figures he didn't like and just accuses them of being Sodomites and puts them in this part of hell because he's an asshat.
5. Ninth Circle (Treachery)
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| Satan is punished by being sent to an ice hotel and given snacks. Dumb! |
- Notable Residents: The Devil. And tons of people who are, again, generally mythological figures and people that Dante just didn't like. Dante does super petty shit here in this circle like kick people in the head and shout at them. Again, because he's a piece of petty, sad shit who didn't have enough balls to do that to anyone in real life. Oh, and I forgot to mention that encased with Satan are the three "ultimate" betrayers: Brutus, Gaius, and Judas. Satan snacks on them. Which is stupid. Why are we giving the devil snacks? What kind of a moronic hell is this? The devil is barely even being tortured! I bet he likes that ice since the rest of hell is so hot.
4. Third Circle (Gluttony)
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| Pictured: rain and not-a-worm. |
- Notable Residents: Fat people. This all seems like a really harsh punishment for being fat. Dante seems to have a problem with plus-sized people. Is he Ed Razek? Yeah. That's right. Ed Ranks Everything often links to Fashionista blogs. Deal with it.
3. Fourth Circle (Greed)
Here, the greedy people are divided onto two sides. The hoarders (who needlessly collected wealth and did nothing with it) and the spenders (who needlessly collected wealth and lavishly spent it). The two sides joust against one another for all eternity, in matches that are refereed by Plutus, who is apparently different from Pluto. All-in-all, this doesn't seem that bad. A jousting competition? I'd much rather have a lance fight than be trapped on putrid slush. Any gluttons out there should try to also be greedy, so they can hope to get sent down a level to what is basically a fun-ass Renaissance Faire.
- Notable Residents: Popes, Cardinals, priests. Yep. Actual Christian clergy who Dante doesn't like get sent to a deeper, worse place in hell than Caesar because Italians have weird hyper-national love towards genocidal monsters.
2. Sixth Circle (Heresy)
Being surrounded by fire actually looks sort of cool.
Heresy? Now we're getting somewhere! This one sounds like a pretty awesome sin. This has got to be some meaty punishment, eh? Let's see... ah... it is "being trapped in flaming tombs for all eternity." HOLY SHIT! That's hardcore, Dante. Hard. Core. I like the fire stuff.
- Notable Residents: Emperors, Cardinals and Popes that Dante didn't like. Jean Grey?
1. Second Circle (Lust)
The terrible fate you will receive for the unforgivable sin of lust is being blown by strong winds that never allow you to rest or find peace. Yep. As punishment for being lustful, you're going to get BLOWN FOREVER. Hahaha, yeaaaaah. "I'm trying to sleep but can't because I keep getting BLOWN." The Second and First Circles of Hell sound pretty damn fun. Get blown. Hang out in a castle. Maybe see if you can see the Fourth Circle and watch some jousting.
- Notable Residents: Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Dido, a contemporary woman named Francesca da Rimini who... hey... wait a minute. Dante sure is singling out a lot of women for "lust." Wow. What a misogynist asshole. Helen of Troy? Helen of Troy? That woman was pretty much kidnapped and and she gets sent to hell for it? I wonder what circle of hell misogynist assholes go into. That's where you'll find Dante.
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