Archive of Our Own

Notes:

Important:
1) This is formatted for mobile scrolling. You do whatever you want to do, but it will be a much better read that way.
2) This is, supposedly, a Hazbin Hotel fancomic. In reality, it is more like a biblical apochrypha / tradition fancomic. In practicality (hopefully,) it's mainly just pretty. It should be readable if the only thing you know of any of those things is who are Lucifer and Lilith, but if you do want the notes and details, see the end of this Note.
+) No alt text for this one, I'm sorry. It builds too much on visuals and has too many things going on for it to be viable, I think.

I started this as a practice thing nearly half a year back and worked on it on-and-off since then. And I'm sure this will change with time, but right now I'm very happy about it.

A shoutout to everyone who listened to me rant about this, and hugs to the friends who beta-read this for me, in most instances fandom-blind. (Helenae, aninfiniteweirdo, MidnightBlue66, tnevmucric.)

Background notes! Click.

About the Garden
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. They were supposedly built by the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II, for his homesick wife. They were said to be a marvel of engineering, allowing for a tiered, high garden in an otherwise relatively flat, dry(ish) area. Just imagine the complexity of getting enough water up there in the summer, 6th century BC!

 

About Lucifer
OK, but what does this have to do with Lucifer?

In the Book of Isaiah, the prophet calls out to הֵילֵל בֶּן-שָׁחַר, Helel ben Shachar, or "shining one, son of the dawn".
How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! (I recommend reading the full passage. It starts from 14:12.)
Helel ben Shachar was then translated into Lucifer in the Latin Vulgate (lux+fero, light bringer), the name of the Morningstar (Venus). Because of the description of falling attached in the Book of Isaiah, people drew a connection from this figure to other mentions of the Devil (Luke 10: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven"), and the devil / satan was named Lucifer.

But we also know that this verse is actually talking about a King of Babylon. (See 14:4 "That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon", and 14:22.) There are multiple ideas to who this might have been, and a popular one is Nebuchadnezzar II (even though he lived a few centuries later than Isaiah) – the king who loved his wife enough to build her one of the wonders of the world.

So across tradition and history and a lot of "we THINK this is the guy", Lucifer can be linked to Nebuchadnezzar II, a creator-king who, presumably, loved his wife very much.

 
About the text
A lot of this text is butchered from one of the only descriptions of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. If I'm right, it's this version of the Bibliotheca Historica by Diodorus Siculus (II 10 1-10), but honestly, it's been a while and Google is useless these days. I modified and cut a lot of it to fit Hell as we know it from the hellaverse, so if you are curious about the original, give it a read!

 

About Faal, Nebuchadnezzar and jewishness
This is not a cultural note, but a personal one – but it's also understandable only in context. The thing is, I'm not Jewish by faith, I'm barely Jewish by culture, but I'm Jewish enough by blood that it gave me a small identity crisis to equalate my blorbo with Nebuchadnezzar. It's... Odd. Kinda uncomfortable. I did not find a resolution, and there is no actual point to this part of the note, but I wanted to add it, to acknowledge the conflict, even if it's only for myself.

And that's it folks! Thank you for reading! 🤍

(See the end of the work for more notes.)