Aliasing devil -> demon.

Reason: Distinction is too subtle for the purposes of this site.

A devil and a demon are very different though, and the tags should stay un-aliased.

Pyke said:
A devil and a demon are very different though, and the tags should stay un-aliased.

No...no, they're not. Devil = demon = Devil. Unless you've got some facts to back it up I suggest we go ahead and do it.

Pyke said:
A devil and a demon are very different though, and the tags should stay un-aliased.

How exactly are they different? They are both manifestations of evil. How it is expressed in art is very variable and as such trying to distinguish between demons and devils on an art site is only going to cause confusion.

KaneTW said:
How exactly are they different?

they are different because the devil aka Satan aka Lucifer was a fallen angel and is the supreme overlord of hell. demons are like angels they follow Satan in his path.

Woofles92 said:
they are different because the devil aka Satan aka Lucifer was a fallen angel and is the supreme overlord of hell. demons are like angels they follow Satan in his path.

They are both (fallen) angels according to Christian beliefs or in any case supernatural beings which per definition cannot have recognizable traits. Assuming we use common representations (which is senseless because tags have to be objective but exposure to art is different from person to person), the Devil is sometimes depicted as a goat-like creature. However there exist drawings of lesser demons as goat-like creatures too, which is a contradiction in trying to establish a tag as a unique identifier. Same holds for other representations.

Well the devil is almost like a character and a demon is almost represented as a species. Regardless of any background information surrounding the two, they should remain separate for the distinction between the devil (often red, horns, tail, hay fork) and a demon (like a creature of the night or a ghoul).

That said I think it might not be a bad idea to have devil imply demon if some see the devil as a type of demon.

Rainbow_Slash said:
That said I think it might not be a bad idea to have devil imply demon if some see the devil as a type of demon.

That seems like the better action.

I vote against this alias because MTG has Devil and Demon as separate creature types. o^o

i vote for this alias because there is no in-image way to tell a demon from a devil, tag what you see and all that

first person to mention character alignment gets a year ban

null0010 said:
i vote for this alias because there is no in-image way to tell a demon from a devil, tag what you see and all that

first person to mention character alignment gets a year ban

Character alignment?
The whole "devils are lawful evil; demons are chaotic evil" thing?

(Please don't ban me)

null0010 said:
first person to mention character alignment gets a year ban

Killjoy.

Test-Subject_217601 said:
Character alignment?
The whole "devils are lawful evil; demons are chaotic evil" thing?

(Please don't ban me)

I flipped a coin; it came out heads, so you're safe.

null0010 said:
I flipped a coin; it came out heads, so you're safe.

Thank you Mr.Coin. -_-;;

I'm against it, the DEVIL is a character, an archetype of demon CLASSES, such as succubi, incubi, daemon lord, daemonette, what not. It should Imply to, but not alias too.

Princess_Celestia said:
I'm against it, the DEVIL is a character, an archetype of demon CLASSES, such as succubi, incubi, daemon lord, daemonette, what not. It should Imply to, but not alias too.

I agree with this. You would not call an Incubus a devil.

I think Devil should imply demon, but not all demons are devils in most peoples eyes and interpretations.

Devil = LE, Demon = CE (I'm the second person to mention this...SAFETY!)

Outside of D&D, though, "Devil" seems to generally refer to Satan in particular, while "demon" is a more general term. So I'd favor an implication.

Pyke said:
I agree with this. You would not call an Incubus a devil.

Why wouldn't you? "A devil" and "a demon" refer to evil supernatural beings typically connected to some kind of negative afterlife place. "The devil" typically refers to Satan, which is a proper name, and characters featuring Satan should be tagged "satan", not "the_devil".

null0010 said:
Why wouldn't you? "A devil" and "a demon" refer to evil supernatural beings typically connected to some kind of negative afterlife place. "The devil" typically refers to Satan, which is a proper name, and characters featuring Satan should be tagged "satan", not "the_devil".

The only reason I can think of is that not all cultures refer to the devil as Satan but are mentioning the same thing, thus I suggested an implication. However for the sake of not overcomplicating things, we could alias "the_devil" to "Satan" and reserve demon for more generic types of darklings or even as an umbrella term.

An implication sounds like a good in-between

One side gets to keep their greater & lesser malevolent entities separate, and the other gets to search one without excluding the other

An implication of devil -> demon ?

Test-Subject_217601 said:
I vote against this alias because MTG has Devil and Demon as separate creature types. o^o

How about using qualifiers? Something like;
devil_(mtg) and demon_(mtg)
-
As for naming conventions, assuming we're referring to Western Christian demonology, that's probably a discussion into context and semantics

In some cases,satan is used interchangeably with the devil, while others keep it separate

Are we using the devil tag to solely refer to the red-skinned,pointy tailed guy/girl with horns?

In terms of word origins and original meanings, devils and demons are different things. Devil specifically connoted evil, while a demon could refer to any lesser god or spiritual being.

That's not to say the meanings haven't merged over time; languages evolve. The entry on Devil indicates that the two words' meanings have merged in English, which is the language we're working in.

My personal thought is that devils and demons are the same thing and should be aliased. As for tagging a specific character from Christian mythology, Satan doesn't usually work well with the TWYS rule.

KaneTW said:
Aliasing devil -> demon.

Reason: Distinction is too subtle for the purposes of this site.

Alias created.

null0010 said:
Alias created.

And turned around and deleted, devil implies demon, does not alias. Now someones going to have to go and fix what it was tagged as a character on, GJ Null.