Character Preview: Beelzebub
Birthday: April 4 (Aries)
Idiosyncrasy: olfactophilia
Ability: creates 'phenomena'
Theme colours: green, black
Interest
The only king with an official 'philia to his name thus far, and we see that Beelzebub gets excited by using his nose - more specifically, for scents and odours emanating from the body.
This may well extend to all scents, and it's easy to see how that fits in with the sin of gluttony. as the vast majority of what we classify as taste is actually from smell.
His ADHD is an interesting touch in that it has only a subtle relation to his sin, but great relation to his personality. A hyperactive Beelzebub is not a common trope, and indeed it is a different demon entirely that exhibits traits of ADHD in Obey Me.
That said, Gluttony in a more modern sense can definitely be linked to ADHD under impeded impulse control.
Personality
[Disclaimer: to discuss Beelzebub we have to discuss Mammon, for reasons that will become clear!]
From what little we know so far about Beelzebub, he is definitively a demon of mystery. So called 'phenomena' are said to occur around him, and he is 'unbound' by such things as reality, powers more suitable for a god than a demon...
There are reports of him appearing in multiple locations at the exact same time, which implies either time travel, ability to create copies of himself, or indeed some manner of omnipresence.
Unlike the depressed Satan and agoraphobic Leviathan, Beelzebub is described as hearty and lovely, as well as sexually desired by many. A regular ray of sunshine in the dark, perhaps.
The first negative point is that his cooking, which he does wherever he goes, must be avoided at all costs - a trope we've seen before in OM with Solomon, and the only time his Gluttony, in the traditional interpretation of the sin, is touched upon.
And the second negative point is that he has seemingly abandoned his throne, which is quite the royal failing and has left another demon forced to try and keep his kingdom together through duplicity in the meantime.
With the three other demon rulers we have seen the impact of their classically defined sin directly upon their personality, but with Beelzebub it is almost as an afterthought and quite a weak link - IF we go by the definition of Gluttony that is solely food related, as that is not mentioned at all.
For those who were frustrated that OM Beel was often reduced to no more than his "I'm hungry" complaint, this is definitely a welcome change.
And in my opinion points to a more complex and insightful interpretation of Gluttony that ties in better with the modern understanding of this sin.
The examples given of Beelzebub's activities when two versions of him are spotted in two different locations at an identical time, are gambling, as well as smoking and drinking. These are all pure vices of excess, of overconsumption, because none of them have much of a virtue even in moderation.
(It is no coincidence that these more spontaneous and destructive vices are ones enjoyed by OM Mammon in his cohort, and indeed this is the first of many parallels. The second if we include Mammon's ADHD type behaviours.)
Greed and Gluttony are overlapping sins, and especially in the modern age where Greed, the desire or coveting of material gain beyond one's needs, is fed by overconsumption which is intrinsically connected to Gluttony - ie the sin of consuming more than is needed.
Greed wants, and Gluttony provides. Further, Greed as a sin extends well beyond wealth and into the excess of any material or worldly good - adverts demand that we purchase the latest and greatest technology, sales tempt us into wanting new and shiny things, and companies offer credit cards to lead people into crippling debt. Even those who overwork themselves without need, who may think of themselves as virtuous in their slog are in fact labelled with the sin of Greed, because they are covetous of more productivity than their neighbour.
(Where Greed strays into coveting power and fame, war and love, we turn to the sin of Lust. Greed is, like many of the deadly sins, overlapping.)
If Greed is the thought, the crime in one's head, Gluttony is the action, the crime made manifest. To covet is one sin, but to take makes two. The consumption of any material or worldly good in excess is Gluttony, to take more than one needs, and because the difference between want and need is so vast in the modern world, it is perhaps the most widespread sin of all.
Classically, Gluttony only applies to food and drink, which makes sense when historically those were the only things that could reasonably be over-consumed with the immediate impact being that others would go without, often fatally. But in recent times, the standards of living have been raised such, and the capitalist drum beaten so, that we are urged to over-consume many resources - and almost all at the expense of the health of our literal world (and often even our own personal health).
This Beelzebub is especially interesting to me in light of the interpretation of WHB Mammon and his Greed - rather than being driven by desire to hoard and own, or to gamble and revel, Mammon is instead content and leisurely in the belief that all things are already his. Despite his mental condition being listed as compulsive hoarding, he doesn't actively hoard anything - he merely believes everything already belongs to him.
So there is no impetus for Mammon to covet or consume, least of all in excess, and instead we see that facet of the two overlapping sins here in Beelzebub instead.
This gives the demon far more opportunity to truly show the more powerful sides of Gluttony - over consumption of resources other than food, and the wastage of such - that are often instead labelled as Greed.
WHB has separated the sin of thought from the sin of action, and has even then divorced Mammon from needing to covet at all, leaving him wide open to explore the other aspects and consequences from the sin of Greed (guile, treachery, fraud, usury, falsehood, violence etc), or maybe something entirely unexpected.
With Beelzebub at least though, we do get a peek of how his sin is manifesting, in a seemingly impulsive king who abandons his throne in favour of obliging his senses and indulging in vices to excess.
He is, in some respects, a good candidate for a Greed demon of old, further underscoring the way these two sins have intertwined and separated.
Regarding his neurodiversity, we also know that ADHD symptoms can be worsened by over-consumption of short form media - tiktok for example - as it encourages our brains to crave rapid fire rewards and shortens attention spans further. We are also more susceptible to addictions, particularly that of gambling, and giving in to the impulsive behaviour will also worsen the downsides of ADHD.
Beelzebub appearing in two places at once in order to do three things at the same time is in my opinion a really good portrayal of a (demonic) ADHD brain, and an emphasis of this interpretation of the sin of Gluttony. If I could do more things at the same time I absolutely would, because my ADHD brain craves input at a ridiculous rate.
(NB - another property that divides these two sins and respective demons thus is In Nomine, a tabletop rpg from the 90s, where Mammon has lost power due to the rise of Gluttony off the back of capitalist excess and consumption.)
Aesthetics, symbolism, and my rating in the cut! ↓
