The Story Behind: Dante's Inferno - Part 2

Welcome to part two of this journey into the realms of hell, we have nine circles still to discover! I am enjoying researching this all far too much. I guess that is the benefit of being able to pick your own subject matter.. On a random tangent, I always hated Art GCSE at school because they told you what to create; not what I thought it was all about to be fair.

If you are new to this little series, the first part can be found here:

http://matttalkslife.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-story-behind-dantes-inferno.html

But otherwise.. Let's get back to it!

So here is the next portion of the story, thanks to lovely wikipedia (again):

At the Gates, he encounters Virgil, who knows of Dante's past sins, yet agrees to guide him through the Nine Circles of Hell in exchange for Beatrice putting in a word for him in Heaven. Dante begins his descent at the shores of Hell where the newly damned souls are forced aboard the great ferry of Charon. Dante forces Charon to sail him across. After this, Charon is destroyed when Dante tears his head off using a beast-mount. After arriving at Limbo, Dante confronts the serpentine Judge of the Damned, King Minos. After Minos denies Dante passage deeper into Hell, Dante fights the Judge and kills him. Dante then enters the second circle, Lust, where he enters the Carnal Tower to find Beatrice, whose soul is slowly being corrupted into a succubus by Lucifer, who also reveals to her

The Story Behind: Dante's Inferno

I remember being really excited for this game when I saw it advertised, it was released in 2010 so that was when I was at school in Sixth Form. I was clearly making very good use of my EMA money because I got the limited edition which they called the Death edition. It came with a holographic case and an extra disk with content, and my favourite bit was exclusive access to an online version of the origin text for the game. It was a poem by Dante Alighieri who was alive during the 13th and 14th century, called the Divine Comedy. I can't for the life of me find that website any more, I am not even sure if it is still available, but luckily - possibly due to this game - there are online versions available. I have found the full poem here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8800/8800-h/8800-h.htm
I wont pop it on here because I assume there are all kinds of legal things around sharing it, and it is actually really long, especially for a poem. It is pretty much a story in all fairness.

Some artwork for the game, all of which is amazing

What I will do this time round is take each paragraph at a time and look into it from there, because the story is much longer than the previous post I did for Okami. So what can you expect? Probably something like a.. Three or four part thing?

The Story Behind: Okami

So, as some of you may know, I have posted previously about some folklore which then went on to inspire a video game:
http://matttalkslife.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/year-walk-swedish-folklore.html

I really like this concept of being able to play myths and legends through video games, I will admit that usually the game will loosely fit the legend to create extra action elements to make it enjoyable but.. Today I wanted to look into the game Okami, not one that I have played personally but one I have watched and very much enjoy the art style of. The game itself is inspired by the Japanese Shinto religion.

Some art work from the game

So the, basic story of the game is as follows - thanks Wikipedia..

"The game is set in a Nippon (Japan) based on Japanese folklore, and begins with a flashback to events 100 years prior to the game's present; the narrator describes how Shiranui, a pure white wolf, and Nagi, a swordsman, together fought the eight-headed demon Orochi to save Kamiki Village and the maiden Nami, Nagi's beloved. Shiranui and Nagi are unable to defeat Orochi, so they seal the demon away.