Why then, does he take up so much space in the poem? Why is he without a doubt the most interesting character in Paradise Lost? Before we meet God, the Son, Adam and Eve, or anybody else, we meet Satan. He's smart and knows what everybody wants to hear, but he's also very dangerous. OK, we get it: Satan is a great speaker, but he's a really mean dude. Adam and Eve had nothing to do with his spat with God they're just pawns in Satan's game, innocent victims whom Satan cruelly takes advantage of. He really just wants to make Adam and Eve suffer to spite God he wants to ruin it for two human creatures who, from one perspective, are his brother and sister (they're God's creations too). Sometimes, Satan tries a different angle at one point he even sheds a tear, a moment that bears some similarities with the sadness he feels when he sees Adam and Eve in Paradise and realizes he's screwed (he actually says "Oh Hell" at that moment). He knows that his auditors (which include us) love that kind of rhetoric, which has proven successful and seductive for centuries. For example, whereas Satan will champion some type of heroic perseverance or a refusal to repent and submit to God's slavery, he's really just ticked off that he lost the war in Heaven and that he has to live in Hell. They are tricky, clever, wily, and anything but straightforward. It turns out, conveniently and ingeniously, that Satan's speeches are uncannily like the animal whose shape he dons to tempt Eve: the serpent. But listening to Satan's impassioned speeches and their infectious rhetoric might make you think so. All he wants from Satan, and everybody else, is a thank you in the morning for being allowed to live in Heaven….FOREVER! Is that really so much to ask? Does that sound like despotism? Not really. OK, God's power is arbitrary, that much is true but he's also the boss. Sometimes, Satan even acts like he's some kind of innocent victim. In Books 2 and 5 especially, Satan does a great job of portraying God as some type of fascist despot or tyrant who loves arbitrary power. But that's also what Satan would love for us to believe about God. We just said that God seems like a boring, authoritative figure well, that's how he comes across. But his is a very seductive kind of evil, which makes him even more dangerous (just think Tom Riddle from the Harry Potter series).
It is a mistake to suppose that he could ever have been intended for the popular personification of evil. Nothing can exceed the energy and magnificence of the character of Satan. The great English poet Percy Shelley, who idolized Milton, summarized the point well: Niphates in 4.32 to get a sense of Satan's Shakespearean flavor). He comes off like some boring unnamed character, whereas Satan is like an evil Hamlet, or Iago, or any other major character that isn't a talking corpse (check out his famous speech on Mt. Yeah we get that he's God, but when we actually meet God in Book 3, he doesn't even compare to Satan. When he wakes up in Hell, chained to a burning lake, how can we not feel a bit sorry for him? All he really tried to do was overthrow God, which is impossible anyway because we're talking about God here. He's like the greatest Shakespearean actor you've ever seen. Satan is flat-out, hands down, without a doubt, the best speaker in the poem. For many years readers of the poem have been divided over the question of whose side Milton was on: Satan's or God's. OK, maybe likeable is going a bit too far, but nearly every reader of the poem has found it difficult to avoid sympathizing with him to some degree, if not completely. While he possesses an unhealthy thirst for vengeance and havoc like the little red dude with a pitchfork you're used to seeing, Satan is also the most likeable character in the poem. Milton's Satan is one of the most dynamic and complicated characters in all of literature.
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