blackkeyincubus

Caliban the Demon

Added 2019-06-14 17:01:01 +0000 UTC

Cal's character is by far one of my favorite things I've ever written into existence. When I first started writing about him back in college, he started out as a werewolf. Over the years I rewrote everything about him dozens of times, but the one piece that never changed was his name.

Caliban.

Derived from Shakespeare's The Tempest, Cal represents everything I love in Shakespearean literature combined with my love of supernatural and demonic fantasy/fiction.

His character is both complex and mysterious. He guards his emotions while focusing on his own interests like his freedom, but unlike most demons he's a genuinely good person.

One of my biggest influences for BKI is Dante's The Divine Comedy. One thing you'll learn about me as a writer is that I love and respect classical literature like it's sacred text xD one such work that I hold in the highest regard is Dante's Inferno. In it, Dante's fantastic representation of divine judgement and cynical irony make me laugh every time. But more importantly, it's the representation of demons and devils that swayed me to love the work itself.

"The devil isn't as black as he is painted." – Dante Alighieri

This had a major impact on how I envisioned Cal's personality and character development. In this fashion, I wanted to illustrate that point with Cal that not all demons in BKI are outright evil just as not all human beings are inherently good.

Demons have free will, too.

-J