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SirJuicyLemon

Dissecting Doom's Inferno depiciton - Help

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Hello community,

I've been interested in trying to understand Doom's depiction of Hell, or at least of the general view of Inferno's episode map from the intermission screen, and trying to figure out how each level is related to the supposed part where it belongs on the map.

 

For some cases, it's kind of easy to imagine what's supposed to be in the picture; for others, I need a bit of help with imagination.

I haven't read the Doom novels, nor Dante's Divine Comedy, so I can't figure out every place of this screen.

 

Here's the original intermission screen:

inferno2.png.7b35c76798254b5492cd9ab1f9c3c52f.png

 

Here's where each level happens:

inferno.png.dafd702702dfe9a5863a5cc03d3b2b6f.png

 

For me the easiest to figure out are Hell Keep and Pandemonium.

 

Hell Keep looks kind of a jail/dungeon or a castle (not native english speaker but seems that keep refers to "the strongest or central tower of a castle, acting as a final refuge", but for some reason keep also sounds like a jail or a dungeon, somewhere where you keep people inside). Not sure why that's the starting point for some reason... Doomguy supposedly descended from Deimos to Hell but did he get caught or did he have the bad luck of descending just there? Also, inside the level with all the flesh textures it's weird to imagine that atmosphere inside of that building, less knowing that you start the level in an outdoor area, like a garden.

 

Pandemonium seems to come from John Milton's Paradise Lost poem where the word is used to describe Hell's capital, one where all the demons live. I guess it's kind of a fortress/city where a big population of demons reside. I feel like there's a more familiar and normal approach to a city or a place where demons can actually reside compared to other levels but I was waiting for something to happen more outdoors inside of the level.

 

Slough of Despair (I suppose that slough is like an abyss rather than a swamp (I had to search for the definition)) may be hard to figure out (I guess? I'm not sure if I'm quite right). At first I didn't knew how it could mean like an abyss nor what were those kind of couple of pillars (those things that look like a dime split in half). Despite still not knowing that those are, I kinda see that there's like an abyss down there. There's a dark rocky area that is what I suppose the shadow of the walls of the abyss contrasted to the brighter rocky surface. The hole doesn't seem to have the hand-shape from the E3M2 map but that may be explained because it's supposed to have that shape on a lower height? I don't know...

 

House of Pain, I can't see more than a giant skull with some pillars or something. So I suppose the "house" has a skull appearance. I can't imagine much how the indoors of that looks like so I don't know how to compare it to the actual level. I guess it's fine.

 

(Gate to) Limbo, at first sight, looked like a Parthenon kind of building but buried/hidden in the sand dune. Now with a second look I kinda see that instead of being buried, it may be burned (like the dark part isn't a shadow because of the sand on top of it but rather because the pillars were burned from the top). Remembering E3M7, I can tell I get the design and aesthetic of it. It goes very well with the marble textures inside of the map.

 

Warrens look like an underground cave or something like that, with a skull rock as it's entrance. It's weird that, supposing that it should ressemble Hell Keep, they are totally different in the map. And again, doesn't seems like a place able to have an outdoor part of the map such as the start. I guess we are forced to imagine these maps happen totally inside the buildings.

 

Mt. Erebus, for me, feels like it has nothing to do with the level. In fact, I would totally swap Mt. Erebus' and Unholy Cathedral's locations. Mt. Erebus should happen on an almost totally outdoor area with a lot of blood/lava around.

 

Unholy Cathedral... same problem. It appears to happen in an outdoors on the edge of a cliff with blood coming out while Mt. Erebus' location looks like a building that may be similar to a cathedral (or at least is best than nothing).

 

Dis seems to happen on a castle or tower of some kind but seems to be accurate with the level design appearance. A fortress with 4 kind of walls (we can't see the shuriken shape of the map that well on this picture but no big deal) with a pillar at the center. The name seems to come from Dante's Divine Comedy and describes a city on the deeper circles of Hell, where the worst sinners reside. Not sure if it has any connection to the map actually.

 

Another theory that I might have is that Unholy Cathedral is actually like the lower part of the building where Dis happen and Dis actually happens at the top of the tower. But being Unholy Cathedral the 5th level and Dis the final one it's kind of weird to think that, after ending Unholy Cathedral, you have to deviate and go to E3M6, E3M7, (E3M9), instead of going directly to Dis.

 

To be honest, even some of the default routes are weird. Like from Mt. Erebus to Warrens then to Limbo. Or even worse, from Unholy Cathedral to Mt. Erebus to Limbo. It's like going even more far away unnecessarily. I guess we have to suppose that there is some kind of underground passage to go from one level to other I guess. Or some kind of object/key out of the gameplay that is needed to access the areas.

 

So anyways, apart from this, what you can see between the leves also give some clues of the depiction of Hell. A vast desert, some dunes with giant spikes, rocky surfaces, abyss, rivers of blood, some mountains at the left and what it appears to be a giant sea of blood behind. Actually weird to not finding any lava (unless that bright thing at Unholy Cathedral's location is lava but I doubt it; it rather looks like the source of that river of blood under the cliff).

 

What do you guys think? Can you give a more descriptive version of the locations of the Inferno levels? Bring out the best of your imaginations my dudes.

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This picture does not compare to Dantes Inferno. In Inferno, hell is depicted as built in circles, each for one mortal sin, coming from the outer end to the most deadly sin, treachery, to the middle of hell, where on the center Satan resides in an frozen sea, chewing on the three arch betrayers, Cassius, Brutus and Judas.

 

Limbo is in the outer region, there are the souls which are sinners without guilt, like Vergil a poet who lived in pre-christian times, who guided Dante through Limbo and Inferno.

Slough of Despair should be the same as Limbo, at least it sounds like it. In Inferno, Limbo is a swamp where all the souls who can not go to heaven or hell wandering around.

 

Hell Keep could be where Minos sort the souls by their sins.

 

Dis is a city in hell, where the heretics are tortured.

 

So much for my memories from reading the Divine Comedy.

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, cybdmn said:

This picture does not compare to Dantes Inferno. In Inferno, hell is depicted as built in circles, each for one mortal sin, coming from the outer end to the most deadly sin, treachery, to the middle of hell, where on the center Satan resides in an frozen sea, chewing on the three arch betrayers, Cassius, Brutus and Judas.

 

Limbo is in the outer region, there are the souls which are sinners without guilt, like Vergil a poet who lived in pre-christian times, who guided Dante through Limbo and Inferno.

Slough of Despair should be the same as Limbo, at least it sounds like it. In Inferno, Limbo is a swamp where all the souls who can not go to heaven or hell wandering around.

 

Hell Keep could be where Minos sort the souls by their sins.

 

Dis is a city in hell, where the heretics are tortured.

 

So much for my memories from reading the Divine Comedy.

Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I know is nothing like Dante's depiction of Hell. I was just searching for references to make a comparison. Just like the one from Paradise Lost. It was just to get some references and see if the levels and the intermission screen approach to the reference they give.

 

The main idea of this post was to read people's ideas of what could mean every location of Hell, how they could describe it (because some of the locations or buildings aren't much clear on the picture) and how it's the relation of the location/building with the map/level itself.

 

 

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Regarding Dis, it could be that the tower is actually entirely behind the cliff and not sitting on top of it like you'd assume from the perspective. This might explain the route and the position of Unholy Cathedral a bit better if it were the case.

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I'd love to see a new level taking place on top of that big mountain. In fact some console ports did move Mt. Erebus there, and the cathedral on top of that church like building which is Erebus on PC. 

 

Similarly i'd like to see a level next to those spikes (which if you look carefully are similar to cacodemon horns.) 

 

I've come to rationalize that Warrens is just an alternate entry to the hell keep. Notice how the skull rock is adjacent to the keep. 

 

I always imagined that the Slough of Despair is the char-grey morass next to those two beacons.

 

 

Edited by printz

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21 hours ago, printz said:

which if you look carefully are similar to cacodemon horns

And I've always said they should have added some way to trigger a special event where you could awaken a giant caco to come rising out of the ground there (complete with earthquakes), and then you'd have to fight it ;)

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On 3/18/2019 at 8:31 AM, printz said:

In fact some console ports did move Mt. Erebus there, and the cathedral on top of that church like building which is Erebus on PC. 

That route would a lot more sense, as well as the locations matching better...

On 3/18/2019 at 8:31 AM, printz said:

I'd love to see a new level taking place on top of that big mountain.

Have your seen this community project?

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As a variation of Quasar's idea, I've actually really wanted a level where some shrine was built around the giant cacodemon, and the marine stumbles upon it, and it rises out of the ground and proceeds to attack, being able to destroy parts of the structure containing it, and you have to figure out how to fight it without getting instantly slaughtered by its giant lightning balls.

 

that would be annoying to implement in any doom engine...

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Yeah, those horns look almost (if not totally) exactly like the Cacodemon's. I was asking for help to understand Hell's map in some sort of way because I was thinking of (I'd rather say imagining) a project of redisigning Episode 3's Hell depiction and maybe changing some details; and one of the ideas that came up to my mind was to make a level totally centered around one of Hell's (and Doom in general) most famous demon: our beloved Cacodemons. So, as an extra secret level or something, you could visit the Cacodemons Lair/City where there were different kinds of Cacodemons and finally, as a final challenge, fight against a giant Mother Cacodemon which spawns more Cacodemons: sort of Pain Elementals relation with Lost Souls but better because, as a boss, Mommy Cacodemon would have lots of health and own independent attacks rather than just summoning new Cacos.

 

12 hours ago, Quasar said:

And I've always said they should have added some way to trigger a special event where you could awaken a giant caco to come rising out of the ground there (complete with earthquakes), and then you'd have to fight it ;)

And this is actually an excellent idea! I actually didn't think of it but the idea goes towards similar concepts.

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12 hours ago, SaladBadger said:

As a variation of Quasar's idea, I've actually really wanted a level where some shrine was built around the giant cacodemon, and the marine stumbles upon it, and it rises out of the ground and proceeds to attack, being able to destroy parts of the structure containing it, and you have to figure out how to fight it without getting instantly slaughtered by its giant lightning balls.

 

that would be annoying to implement in any doom engine...

 

Sounds like something Dragonfly would do, like that level of his with the portal (Order of the Odonata).

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