I'm C&Ping another God-themed ask in here, too.

I have ... so many thoughts about God.

I’ve written a bunch of meta that included a lot of my own ideas and speculation about God and his relationship with Lucifer, but it’s been a long time since I went back to read it. So, I just did that. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5.) And the truth is ... most of my thoughts still hold up pretty well.

So. I think Lucifer’s reaction to Actual Dad showing up on Earth was more or less perfectly in line with what was previewed in “God Johnson.” Lucifer is so angry (and with Lucifer, anger = hurt) at the end precisely because it’s an equal and opposite reaction to what he felt hearing those words of love and support from his dad. His self-loathing convinces him that his dad would never say those words. Then, the family dinner seems to reinforce that. But what we see happen, of course, is basically a slower version of God Johnson. Even though Lucifer is still angry (HURT), his natural state isn’t that anger or hate or annoyance or hurt--Lucifer’s greatest desire really is (and always has been) to love and be loved. For who he is, not what he does.

The irony of Lucifer thinking he doesn’t know how to love is that he’s actually about 91.5% love (by volume). He loves Earth, he loves humanity, he loves all the random things humanity has created or improved upon, he loves nice suits and luxury and his car. He loves good whiskey and strawberries and Hot Tub High School. He loves music--he loves music so much. (And, given his reaction, I’m firmly convinced Lucifer loved the dinosaurs.) And even though that love has been, at times, poisoned by selfishness and self-loathing and anger to the point where it sometimes seemed nonexistent, it was still there. We saw it in the first episode, with Delilah. We see it all the time.

So, the other thing 5b made pretty clear is that while Dad's eldest son (Amenadiel) may be closest to him in physical appearance, Lucifer (the youngest) is closest to him in ... so, so many other ways. Music. Cooking. Bad puns. Pranks. Jokes. Curiosity. Delight. The childlike enjoyment of novel experiences. Teasing as a love language. Love. Just love in general.

I think God hoped Lucifer would grow beyond even what he, God, was capable of. The thing is, God backed himself into a corner. Since his angels responded to everything he said like it was, well, THE WORD OF GOD, he knew they'd never actually be free if he was always around ... SAYING things. And I think that when he created Lucifer, he gave him the curiosity and questioning and rebelliousness that he knew his children would need if they were ever to become more than just Traits of God made manifest.

Lucifer could have walked out of Hell any time--he could have walked through the door, like Mr. Said Out Bitch did. God knew this. I'm pretty sure God hoped it wouldn't take EONS for this to happen. But God ALSO knew Lucifer's own guilt and fear and pain couldn't be WORD OF GOD commanded away, or that precious free will Lucifer prized would be lost forever.

During the Rebellion, Lucifer wanted to be God for the wrong reasons. God knew Lucifer had the capacity to be God for the right ones. I think God hoped Lucifer would one day achieve that; I think he wanted to see his child surpass him. But Lucifer had to learn the right reasons for himself. He had to learn the selfless side of desire and not just the selfish one. He had to learn giving without needing or expecting equal reciprocation. And ... it took a long time. He's still working on it.

And Lucifer? Lucifer, 91.5% love (by volume), needed to hear that his dad loved him and was proud of him. He needed the context so he could finally understand these feelings that had been such a primary motivator for him FOREVER. He needed the words. He needed that damned hug. And God, knowing he was at last freed from accidentally WORD OF GODing his son out of free will, was finally able to give it.

And the thing is ... I think God needed those words and that hug as much as Lucifer did. I think being remote and distant hurt him more even than it hurt his children--God always knew what he was sacrificing for them, for their chance to have freedom, to be more than slaves "of God." And he did it anyway, even though he knew they'd resent him, hate him even, for it.

Look, maybe some people have gotten over the way Maze sobbed over that NSYNC t-shirt, but I sure haven't.

Since Dan being in Hell was a catalyst for Lucifer's realization that the whole system is unjust, I am sure he'll play a role in S6's arc. And given the intense emotion shown by everyone who loves(d) him, I'm sure conversations will be had.

Dan's arc is so freaking fascinating. I mean, I hated the guy in S1. I'm pretty sure I was actually okay with thinking Malcolm had killed him.

I reluctantly started to like him in S2 ... and that just grew until, y'know, I spent last Friday ugly-crying into a pillow. And of course Dan has to be the one to show us (and Lucifer) how wrong the system is. We know Dan is a good guy. We know he's grown. We know he took his second chance and used it to become a better man. We love him, and we know he doesn't belong in an eternity of pain and torture for mistakes he made and atoned for--but for which he couldn't forgive himself.

He's an echo of Lucifer: the pain, the suffering, the rebellion, the impatience, the guilt, the self-loathing. So, if we're uncomfortable with the idea of Lucifer returning to Hell (and we should be; he doesn't want to be there), we should be just as uncomfortable at the thought of Dan there.

I think something Lucifer and Maze's reactions to Dan's death show so well is how potent personal connections are. It makes things more real.

Even with the ribbing and the occasional animosity and jabs and shootings and epic prankings ... Dan is family. Dan is like a brother to Lucifer, to Maze. The kind of brother that sometimes drives you crazy. The kind of brother a stranger might think you dislike if they heard you speaking about him out of context. But in Lucifer and Maze's world, that like-calling-to-like of darkness, of struggle, of violence is familial. Like, Lucifer may call him Detective Douche, but if anyone else said it, he'd go full Devil-face on them. You can tease your own family, but god forbid some outsider is mean. It's like Maze's "No one calls my skank a skank" line.

Oh, this last season. It so brilliantly showed so many different flavors of love and affection. And Lucifer and Maze, especially, highlighted this variety so beautifully.

And yeah. Dan needs to know that. He needs to know that he belonged in the weird messed up found family we've all come to love just as much as the others do. He deserves to know that he wasn't just tolerated, he was loved.

And of course he and Charlotte deserve to be together. <3

I am having a lovely day! Although it was lovelier before my browser decided to crash and I lost the whole response I’d written to this ask just as I was about to hit post.

Chloe’s heart is 100% in the right place. She wants to be as available to help Lucifer as Lucifer has been to help her over the past five years (though presumably without the hasty Vegas marriage). But she misses a really critical step.

See, when Penelope’s discussing the arrangement she and her husband came to, she’s pretty explicit about it being something they decided together. They sat down, they talked about their hopes and goals, they decided on a course of action, they compromised. Together. As a couple. As partners.

In an act Linda would find all too familiar, Chloe hears the story, applies it to her own life, and then ... misses the mark a bit. Because she makes the decision without the vital “sit down and talk to your partner” part.

That’s why Lucifer’s so taken aback. He’s pretty sure his bid for godhood is doomed to fail. That’s what the evidence is telling him. So, just as he’s contemplating the futility of what he’s doing, Chloe shows up and completely upends life as he knows it. No more Detective, no more mysteries, no more this. To Lucifer, this is just another mark of his failure and unworthiness. She’s willing to give up this huge facet of her identity—he calls her The Detective, for goodness’ sake—for him, and he’s going to have to hand her a whole bunch of disappointment and failure. #peakLucifer

That’s also why he suggests she not give her notice. But Chloe, misreading this, thinks he’s doubting her commitment, so she doubles down and quits immediately. (She also does this because she’s doubting her own commitment—and she wants to prove her seriousness to herself.)

The story of Chloe and Lucifer has a very clear moral: TALK TO YOUR PARTNER BEFORE MAKING DECISIONS. Each should have a tattoo on the back of their hand that says, “Wait. Have I talked to my partner about this?” Because if they have 99 problems, probably, like, 94 of them could be fixed by just talking to their partner about the problem.

If they have a place to get to as a couple, it’s the place where they turn to each other to talk things out and make decisions together instead of making assumptions and invariably having to clean up the mess left by a fallout they could very likely have avoided altogether with just a smidgen of communication. 

He thought it precisely because it was over the top. Even if, all other things being equal, he had succeeded in becoming God to prove himself worthy of Chloe (which would've been impossible), it wouldn't have been enough.

Because it's not about Chloe, it's not about God, it's not about any of that. It's about Lucifer and his fear that he's unworthy.

One of the most important--if not THE most important--through-lines of the entire series is the idea of therapy. Often, a goal of therapy is to name fears and address them. Again and again, Lucifer returns to this fear of unworthiness. And this fear goes back ... well, forever.

So, Lucifer's been trapped in an ever-escalating cycle where his fears of failure and unworthiness fester. Psychologically, this leads to all sorts of traits we're familiar with--complete hedonism, denial, depression, perfectionism, anger, self-harm, blaming others, avoiding attachments that might hurt him more. Even when he succeeds at something important, the buoyant effect it has on him is temporary because he's never addressing the deeper issues. He's putting band-aids on a mortal wound. Every time, the success needs to be bigger to get the same effect. It's like chasing a high. And then the low that follows? Gets lower and lower and lower.

Michael didn't make Lucifer afraid of being unworthy. He just reflected back the fear that already existed (and then he used it against his brother 'cause he's a dick that way). Lucifer is still fixating on the external, though. Blaming God, then blaming Michael, then setting himself an all-but-impossible goal of proving himself worthy to someone who has (as she says so pointedly) already made her feelings perfectly clear.

The issue is that when Lucifer looks inside himself, he still sees this failure. So he projects all over the place. He convinces himself that Chloe may say she cares about him now, but it's only because she hasn't seen what a cowering, unworthy, useless failure he actually is. And, in Lucifer's mind, it's inevitable that she'll find out. Then she'll leave him. He'll disappoint her. Just like he disappoints everyone, eventually. He'll be metaphorically cast into an even worse, even darker, even lonelier hell. I don't think Lucifer subscribes to the idea that "it's better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all."

The cycle means that Lucifer's fears are also self-fulfilling prophecies--because that happens a lot with fear.

Lucifer couldn't "become God" until he found a reason to do so that wasn't tied to his own sickly, stunted self-worth. That wasn't tied to proving himself to something external. Instead, it's tied to something that's even more a part of Lucifer than his fear of unworthiness: his belief in fairness, in justice. Desire not in the material sense, but in the spiritual.

From a place of love, he looks at the system as it exists and says, "This is not fair. This is not just. It needs to change. I need to change it."

Not for power, not for personal gain, not to "win." (I maintain there's still some hubris in thinking he's the one who has to do it, but I suspect that we'll get some fallout from that in S6--I'm going to write about that more in a later speculation post, though.)

And we do know that above all things, Lucifer is an expert in fair. And once he finally stops living his own hell loop of endless self-torture (unworthiness) over and over, he can walk through the door and be free. Actually heal. Like Mr. Said Out Bitch. Like punishing Michael but not killing him.

Linda says, "Maybe you should be a therapist."

And the truth is, I suspect that's what--as God--he'll become. Not distant and unknowable and mysterious ways. The guide who can't fix things for you, but who can concoct the perfect plan to show you how to get out by yourself. Maybe he'll answer questions with questions, but the goal will be freedom--not endless self-recrimination.

And a final quick thing I want to mention (even though the heaven/hell thing is something I want to write an entirely different essay about) ... it's not just hell that needs fixing. In heaven, Chloe didn't remember the things that made her sad. To be content in heaven, she had to forget Trixie, Lucifer, Dan. Is it really eternal bliss if, to be there, you have to forget the people you loved?

I don't think Lucifer will think so.