"'They have no hope of death, but a blind life
So abject, they envy any other fate.
To all memory of them, the world is deaf.
Mercy and justice disdain them...'"

-- Dante's Inferno; Canto III, l. 40-44

"'... I come to ferry you across
Into eternal dark on the opposite side,
Into fire and ice!...'"

--Dante's Inferno; Canto III, l. 71-72

"He was brought across in 1228... preyed on humans for their blood. Now, he wants to be mortal again, to repay society for his sins. To emerge from his world of darkness, from his endless, forever night."

--Forever Knight, opening sequence

Introduction

From 1992 to 1996, a television show called Forever Knight aired in the United States and Canada. It fell into the strange genre of "vampire cop drama," and told the story of Nicolas de Brabant, a 13th century Crusader and vampire, now a homicide detective in Toronto, living under the name of Nick Knight. Unlike previous vampire movies and TV programs, Forever Knight eschewed the popular clich�s of bats, tuxedos, and drafty old mansions and castles, and more importantly, made its vampires as real as was possible, with passions and fears and desires for more than just blood. It drew richly on history, myth and literature, and raised questions dealing not only with life and death, but with the natures of mortality and immortality, of right and wrong, and of justice and redemption. Nick Knight is an eight-hundred-year-old vampire with a conscience, and a gnawing sense of guilt that is slowly destroying him. He believes that to be a vampire is to be pure evil, almost if not completely beyond redemption. He has spent the last hundred and fifty years searching for a way to become mortal again, and now in Toronto, he has found someone whom he believes can truly help him--Chief Coroner Dr. Natalie Lambert. Nick is tired of being a vampire, of killing people and of never seeing the sun, and since he is essentially in many ways still a medieval Christian knight, he has a great fear of eternal damnation into Hell, so that now he wants nothing more than to return to being a normal human being, and to repent his sins. Nick's extremely medieval views of hell and redemption are very much like those expressed by Dante Alighieri in his Inferno, the first part of his Divine Comedy. Like the Divine Comedy, Forever Knight is the record of a quest to overcome sin and find God's love. Like Dante's vision of Hell, Nick's life is dark, a thing of loneliness, loss and abandonment. In fact, three of the major characters in Forever Knight--Nick, Natalie, and Nick's vampire master LaCroix--are good parallels to three of the major players in the Inferno--Dante himself, Beatrice, and Virgil.

Like Dante, Nick has reached a turning point in his life: "Midway on our life's journey, I found myself/In dark woods, the right road lost" (Canto I, l. 1-2). He is closer to mortality now than he has been in eight hundred years, but he is continually having crises of faith, waffling between wanting to be human and wanting to give in to his vampire desires. To compensate for his transgressions towards the vampire (i.e., drinking cow's blood, flying to crime scenes, using his hypnotic abilities on witnesses and suspects to obtain information), Nick has a tendency to focus on what he perceives as his 'worst' sin; that is, the many 'murders' he has committed over the centuries. He believes he has lost his way on the 'true path' of life, and that sin has obstructed his path to God (Canto I, l. 9-10). It is his reason for being a police officer in the first place, to atone. To him, it's not about happiness or harmony but about doing God's will, whatever it may be, because God's will needs no further justification.

Natalie is to Nick as Beatrice is to Dante--his love from afar, his epitome of Grace. He can't have her, can't possess her, but he can see her and put her on a pedestal to worship. Beatrice is the embodiment of both Human and Divine Grace, and in Nick's mind, these two types of Grace are all balled into one, and they exist in their entirety in Natalie. She is also midway between Nick and his vampiric master, LaCroix, in that while she is a scientist, she also has a very strong core of faith. It's never revealed what that faith is, or if it has a religious origin, but it is clearly there--her faith in Nick and their work, that he can become human again, and that there may be a chance for them to have a life together. She is the balancing factor that often keeps Nick from going off the deep end.

Making his major appearances mainly in the second and third seasons, LaCroix is the Virgil-like character (albeit more brutal in his ways); he is wise, commanding, and resourceful. Nick regards LaCroix as his master, just as Dante regards Virgil--"'You are my teacher, my master, and my guide'"--and LaCroix often refers to Nick as his son (Canto II, l. 113). When Nick sympathizes with mortals or attempts to remain too long in one place, LaCroix becomes impatient with him, a trait not unlike that used by Dante to humanize Virgil, although in LaCroix's case, any humanizing effects are generally negated by some cruel action on his part. LaCroix is far more manipulative and controlling than Virgil ever was--indeed, in some ways, he can be more appropriately compared to Milton's Satan--but like Virgil, LaCroix is an allegorical representation of human reason: immensely powerful yet still inferior to faith in God, and without faith, reason is powerless. Like many vampires portrayed in this series, LaCroix displays an inability to adapt to sudden change, one of the disadvantages to living always in the present moment, unlike Nick, who uses his many years of past experience to guide him, or Natalie, who is constantly looking to the future.

The dominant theme in Dante's Inferno is justice, not mercy, and redemption is only hinted at, to taunt the sinners in Hell. In Forever Knight, in Nick's opinion, this is still the case--he got exactly what he asked for and now he's regretting it mightily--hence his desperate attempts to redeem himself, through good works and trying to regain his mortality. His views on God and sin and Heaven and Hell are still very medieval, that for those in Hell, there is no redemption, but for the sake of his soul, he will keep trying. However, throughout the series, there are several instances in which it is made apparent that Nick is not quite as damned as he thinks he is, that there is still hope for him. Nick, like Dante, is not dead yet, and despite being a vampire, the choice to be good or evil in his soul is still open to him.

For I Have Sinned

This episode, which takes place very early in the first season, sends a message that is consistently prevalent all through the series--that redemption is there, if you'll only ask for it. Juxtaposing Nick's investigation of a homicidal religious zealot--with the reluctant help of a young priest--with flashbacks of a long-ago meeting with Joan of Arc, it serves to completely contradict nearly all that Dante sets forth in the Inferno by presenting a more contemporary definition of Christianity in the form of Father Pierre Rochefort, who tries to explain that "'God is always ready to forgive us, no matter what our transgressions.'" Despite this, Nick is still unwilling to believe in a God that is all-loving and all-forgiving. Indeed, as the girl-prophet accused him, he is indeed "'in constant fear of death'" because he does not know what is awaiting him on the other side, and that since he has no way of knowing whether or not he can be forgiven, he is "'afraid of salvation.'" This is proven when Natalie asks him why vampires are all so afraid of crosses: "'Because it's a symbol of the one true light and we're creatures of the dark.'" He is afraid of living as a vampire, and afraid of dying without repenting, and afraid of he is not worthy of being saved. But when Father Rochefort asks him, "'Is there nothing you believe in that strongly?'" Nick is not able to answer him. The idea of religious faith is one that he still grasps onto, even after eight hundred years, but it is something that he no longer truly understands. He remembers asking Joan of Arc, "'How can you be sure that God is waiting for you on the other side?'" and being dumbfounded by her answer of "'Faith. Pure, simple faith.'" Later, when he is recounting this to Natalie, he recalls that she had an incredible "'[f]aith in her own immortality. The spiritual kind, not the kind I have to offer.'" Eight centuries later, he is still trying to wrap his brain around this concept.

Since Joan is a holy person (although when Nick meets her, it is of course pre-canonization), she knows exactly what he is--a "'handsome creature condemned to spend an eternity in darkness.'" But she is not afraid of him. "'The faith you've lost is always there to regain,'" she tells him, a statement remarkably ahead of her 15th century contemporaries, to offer salvation to a creature of darkness. It is a statement that Nick was not ready to accept at the time, and is constantly struggling with--though he wants to believe, there is always a small kernel of doubt.

What Nick ultimately fails to understand--and what probably never entered into Dante's mind--is that it is not the sin that condemns us, but our unwillingness to admit and confess our wrongdoings, and our reluctance to believe that we can be forgiven and admitted into God's kingdom. As written by Oscar Wilde, "It is not the priest, but the confession that grants absolution."

Last Act

This episode immediately follows "For I Have Sinned," and deals with the idea of suicide. Although never mentioned outright, implicit through the story is Nick's Christian belief that suicide is a one-way ticket to eternal damnation, no matter what progress he might have made towards mortality, an idea echoed in Dante: "'My mind, in its disdainful temper, assumed/Dying would be a way to escape disdain.../And I--I made my own house be my gallows'" (Canto XIII, l. 66-67, 142).

Set against the theme of suicide is the ever-present but this time contrasting theme of immortality through storytelling, in the guise of Nick's old playwright friend Erica. This also is a constant in Dante, as all the sinners in Hell will have eternal life through Dante the traveler's remembrance of them, and as Dante himself will have immortality through his Divine Comedy. Erica is doubly immortal--she is not only a vampire, she is an actress and a writer of plays, works that will live on long after she is gone, and it is this idea of eternal life that keep her feeling alive. But she is not entirely satisfied with this solution; she speaks of "'... our sad, sweet irony...'" with Nick, the fact that vampires cannot have children. "'[Mortals'] children are their immortality...'" In Erica's mind, without this ability to contribute to the future, to have a everlasting life through legacy, vampires must contribute to society, to pay for the lives they have taken, otherwise eternity is meaningless, and that when they stop contributing, that it is best for them to "'go away before life becomes a burden.'" Nick, during one of his crises of faith, thinks of himself as that burden--he has eight unsolved homicides and a ninth knocking at his door--and contemplates ending his life. It is Natalie, as his epitome of Humanity, who pulls him out of his rut. "'Frustration is a part of being human!... Suicide is never the answer.'"

In the end, suicide is not only a destruction of what God has created--something Nick's been doing all his life--but a destruction of self, and that is what Nick cannot contemplate doing. When confronted with a vision of his 'old friend' Erica, Nick tells her that he can still make a difference, and though his life may one day end, it will never be "by my own hand."

Near Death

Taking place in the second season, 'Near Death' offers a deep look into Nick's psyche and religious convictions. During an unusual murder investigation, Nick comes into contact with a device that can induce near-death experiences. Believing that this is a chance for him to make right the choice he made eight hundred years ago, Nick undergoes the procedure.

This is not something that Natalie, his friend, sometime-conscience, and the model he aspires to, has much regard for. She believes in an afterlife, yes, but she is not convinced that Nick can simply take a field trip to it. Nick explains to her that he has had a near death experience before, when LaCroix made him into a vampire, and that he had the choice to go into a light and die as a mortal, but that he turned away. "'I chose to live as a vampire. The seduction was too great. I had to know what it was like'", revealing a destructively Faustian desire for knowledge--that there are some things that men should not meddle in. Nick went where he wasn't supposed to, and now he's paying for it. But that's not what Nick wants; he doesn't want to spend the rest of time repenting for his crimes--he wants to be redeemed right now.

'Near Death' is a wonderful model of the psychomachia, the battle for the soul, and of Dante's assertion that it is the choice that makes a man evil rather than good, thereby justifying his own lack of pity for the damned--no sympathy for the devil. What Nick sees while he is under the influence of the device--what he perceives as a vision of the space between life and death--is in fact his own very personal, very psychological hell, complete with a Guide who is the very likeness of his master, LaCroix, who represents "'the better part of the evil'" that still infects him. He sees his soul as a maggot-eaten corpse on Natalie's dissecting table; he is confronted with a graveyard full of the thousands of people he has murdered over the centuries to keep life in his body. He is told that he can be 'reclaimed' by the light, but that then his soul will be judged. "'Then I am damned,'" Nick realizes. He tried to take a short cut and failed miserably, and the more he tries to escape his fate, the more he is confronted by it.

"'What is humanity?'" the Guide asks him. "'Merely a race of people?'"

"'No,'" says Nick. "'It's a state of being. Of Grace.'"

In this way, Nick realizes that he must return to life, to complete his task. There is still a chance for him to be redeemed, but he must continue working to achieve it, and it will be a long, hard struggle. "'Forgiveness isn't something you ask for,'" he tells Natalie, "'it's something you earn. Here. Among the living.'"

This is the first time that Nick is willing to abandon his long-held notions of a wrathful God. He knows now that the final decision over whether he will be damned or saved--the final choice--rests with him. God will not judge the guilt or innocence of his soul; he will do that himself.

A More Permanent Hell

The second to last episode of the second season, 'A More Permanent Hell' is a study in despair. A massive asteroid is hurtling towards Earth, and when it hits, it will obliterate life. Vampires and mortals alike are struggling to come to terms with their last few months of existence. Nick, for his part, refuses to accept that this is the end of all. Throughout the episode, he is surprisingly rational, while his usual rocks of steadiness, Natalie and LaCroix, are the ones in need of reassurance.

This episode plays on the major theme of divine wrath, evidenced by the customary flashbacks present in almost every episode; however, this time, they are all from LaCroix's point of view, as he remembers the first great natural disaster he lived through--the destruction of Pompeii, his mortal home, in 79 AD. Contemporary writers asserted that Pompeii, a city known for its love of carnal pleasures, had been destroyed by the will of the gods, in retribution for the immoral ways of its people. Again, there is the idea of choice--the people of Pompeii chose to be drunk and lustful (although, in all fairness, they were no worse than, say, the people of Las Vegas), therefore, it is presuming against the wisdom of the gods to pity them. This time, however, it is not just a city that is being destroyed--it is an entire planet, with more than one intelligent species. The young vampires, like Nick, will eventually starve and die without mortals to feed on; the ancient ones, like LaCroix, will linger for a long, long time.

"'What will happen to you?'" Nick asks his master. "'I have been delivered from death,'" says LaCroix with a trace of dread, "'to a more... permanent hell.'" One of the geniuses of Dante was that he fit each sin with a corresponding punishment--the wrathful spend eternity attacking each other, those who were gluttons in life are condemned to eat excrement after death, and so on (Cantos VIII, VI). LaCroix wanted to live, to be spared the fate of being buried alive under a mountain of ash, and he got exactly what he asked for. "'The gods cannot destroy me!'" he declared as the fires of Vesuvius were raining down, and he was right. He cannot be destroyed, and that is his punishment. In his two thousand years of life, he has killed and tortured, and continually driven away the one person for whom he feels any real affection: his son, Nick. When the asteroid hits, and all the other vampires are gone, LaCroix will be alone... forever.

It is at this time that LaCroix reveals that vampires are nothing without mortals, an incredible admission for this stern, upright military man, a former general in the armies of emperors Claudius and Vespasian and Titus. He also makes another telling confession:

Nick: "So who is the more powerful in the end? The hunter or the hunted?"
LaCroix: "I don't know. Perhaps there is a power that is greater than both."
Nick: "And the possibility frightens you."

This vision of LaCroix is similar to Virgil's helplessness outside the gates of the city of Dis (Canto VIII). The otherwise cold and dominant vampire is now completely vulnerable to this force of nature; his own powers are useless and reason has failed him, and all that is left for him to turn to are the gods of his youth--gods that are long dead--or one of the new gods, like Nick's God, whom LaCroix had always sneered at. His reason is useless to him without faith to back it up. This is why Nick is so calm and collected while everyone else is running around in a panic; he has his reason, and he has his faith, and seeing LaCroix acknowledge a higher power has just given Nick's faith a much-needed boost.

"'Life will always find a way to cheat death,'" LaCroix tells Nick, clearly insinuating that this is no blessing, but Natalie has other thoughts on the subject. She does not want to die this way--wiped off the planet by freezing temperatures and toxic air. She has a better idea: "'The human race is destroyed, and in its place, a new species.'" Natalie asks Nick to bring her across, to make her immortal. But Nick's faith in himself, in humanity, will not let him believe that the threat of the asteroid is real, and so he refuses her.

In the end, his instincts are proven correct; the asteroid scare was nothing more than a hoax. Nick's faith has prevailed. This is a major turning point for Nick: for the first time, his faith in himself has been a positive driving force.

Sons of Belial

By the middle of the third season, the time of 'Sons of Belial,' Nick has experienced several crushing blows to his belief in his own ability to atone and become human: his partner and captain have been killed, an occurrence for which he blames himself; a good friend of his has left town, again, because of him; and Natalie, whom he has been leaning on for five years, is responding to his depression by becoming more curt and abrupt towards him.

The overriding theme of 'Sons of Belial' is a powerful one, one that Dante would no doubt disagree with: "'As there is God in us all, so too must there be the Devil, and none shall know til the end which shall prevail.'" Dante maintains that it is the choice a man makes while he is living that makes him good or evil, and that it is no mystery where his soul will end up after death. With the Forever Knight universe's emphasis on personal choice, this theme is an unusual concession to the forces within each human being, forces that have nothing to do with mind or body. The episode centers around a botched exorcism that Nick witnesses, in which the demon being expelled instead enters Nick's body, possessing him. According to the exorcist Vanderwaal, a demon takes possession of someone struggling with their faith, someone caught between good and evil, those that wage war with themselves--in other words, someone in who has blundered "off the true path" (Canto I, l. 10).

Another, less blatant theme, is that 'the ends justify the means.' This is shown both in the flashbacks, when a mortal Nick saves from Inquisitors returns to save Nick from the same men, an action which LaCroix interprets as "'serving his [Nick's] needs'", and in the entire concept of the Spanish Inquisition in the first place, and in the present, when LaCroix, having run out of options and being begged by Nick, is compelled to take his possessed son back to the exorcist. The ends always justify the means, even--or especially--in religion, i.e., the excommunicated priest Vanderwaal, using ancient, sacrilegious practices to drive out the devil. It is interesting to note that 'the ends justify the means' is one of the principle teachings of the Devil. Dante would be appalled.

But it works--with LaCroix's help, the exorcism drives the demon out of Nick, and properly this time. "'Torn as he is by good and evil,'" says the exorcist, "'Nick does have faith.'" The goodness in a person can be consumed by the evil that exists alongside it, if that evil is allowed to fester. Nick could not have been infected by the demon unless there was still good in him to begin with, and therefore, having both good and evil within him, he had to make a conscious choice to fight the demon and reclaim his soul. His faith may have taken several hard knocks over the past few months, but although severely battered, it is still there.

The flashbacks in this episode pertain to a time during the Spanish Inquisition, when Nick and LaCroix were held by the Inquisitors as servants of the Devil: "'This God and this Devil are a mere human contrivance,'" LaCroix scoffs. "'And convenience.'" But it is LaCroix's acceptance of a higher authority, first seen in 'A More Permanent Hell,' that helps Nick pull through the exorcism and defeat the demon--"'There is good in you. There is God in you. Use it!'"--a parallel of Virgil's acceptance of God's authority.

Fever

'Fever' takes place perhaps two or three weeks after 'Sons of Belial,' and focuses on the ever-popular theme of 'science v. religion.' Against flashbacks of England during the Black Death epidemic of the 17th century, the vampires of Toronto are rocked by a man-made plague, an experimental HIV treatment that is decimating their population, and the theme becomes not simply 'science v. religion', but 'reason v. faith.'

The 17th century priest preached fire and brimstone to his parishioners, and the dangers of tampering on God's domain: "'We are creatures of death!'" ; "'It is God who gives life and death!'" Like so many then and now, he believed that God would spare the righteous, a view not shared by a doctor whom Nick befriends: "'Righteous, sinners, tavern keepers and priests. We are all equal in the eyes of this plague.'"

Tampering on God's domain is something that a vampire does on a nightly basis, and "'some germ'" has never harmed a vampire before. "'We are not so easy to eradicate,'" LaCroix tells Nick when his son tries to warn him of the new plague. "'Men have struck at us with fire and with lies and we are still here. I am still here.'" But the plague is real, and as the proverb says, pride goeth before a fall, because Nick has unknowingly infected his master with the lethal disease.

When it is only himself that is confronted with a problem, Nick can cope. But his faith and his ability to believe in the goodness in himself has been sorely tried in the recent past, and now that it is only his people--vampires, not mortals--that are dying, he begins to lose faith in earnest: "'Maybe this was meant to be. What if Nature's had enough of unnatural things feeding on this world? What if this is Nature's way of getting rid of us? Divine justice'" and a parallel to Dante's assertion that the punishment must fit the crime if balance is to be maintained. Needless to say, Natalie is not convinced. "'Is this the kind of mortality you want?'" she asks. Nick responds quietly, "'Maybe it's the only kind I'm allowed.'" "'Don't you give me that crap,'" Natalie snaps at him. "'God does not choose.'" In this context of 'faith v. reason', Nick has become the epitome of waning faith, Natalie, the essence of prevailing reason, and LaCroix is stuck somewhere in the middle--he has no faith, but for once he doesn't want to believe in reason. But he has no choice; his people are dying all around him, "'a dozen in a single night. Who would have thought that they would die? My children and my people who should have lived forever. My people... my children...'"

Oddly, as the series began to wind down, it is LaCroix who begins, unwillingly, to see that there are higher powers in the universe. In the face of another force he cannot fight, this time a deadly virus, he must lash out at something; but he can no longer rage against a god he doesn't believe in, because he is slowly beginning to trust in that higher power. He won't go so far as to put a name to it, but he knows it is there. In response, he instead vents his ire against the one clear enemy he has left, the person who is trying to take Nick away from him by making him mortal: Natalie. "You proffer modern medicine as religion, and that faith and technology will not be defeated. It's a false promise." Without a god to denounce as a mortal folly, he condemns reason, the very thing he had believed in before.

It is more than worth noting, however, that LaCroix's declarations against reason do not last, although he does seem more willing to admit that there are things in the world he has not yet experienced, and that while Nick's faith takes a beating, it never deserts him completely, and does pay off when Natalie discovers a cure for the fatal fever: ironically, the very HIV that the virus was intended to kill in the first place.

The strongest argument in 'faith v. reason' is that men should not presume to make decisions in God's domain, that doctors should not meddle in matters of life and dead. Natalie takes a different tack on it: "'Why save vampires? You know, some people still think that AIDS isn't worth curing. Who are they to decide that? Who am I?'" It is true that there is a level of Dante's Hell reserved for people who prefer to take no action at all, rather than risk taking wrong action (Canto III).

Conclusion

The importance of Dante's Inferno in relation not just to Forever Knight but to any television program, film or book dealing with the redemption of sins, cannot be underestimated. It is the premiere 'guide book' of Hell, complete as it is will all its level, various sins and punishments. But it is of particular importance to Forever Knight because of the main character's medieval background. The themes and beliefs expressed in the Inferno are familiar to Nick because they are what he was taught as a child, and what he carried with him for eight hundred years. To LaCroix, they are contemptible signs of mortal weakness that slowly become an eerie reminder of his own insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe, while to Natalie, they are completely foreign to her way of thinking. As the series progresses, they become more and more foreign to Nick as well, leading him finally to a belief in a just and loving God who forgives all His children. That the show is trying to refute and even disprove what Dante set forth is not a backlash against the work, but evidence of the evolution of the Christian faith and of the perception of the Christian God, as one who no longer decrees the eternal damnation of sinners but as one who desires sinners to repent their ways and return to Him. Forever Knight, like the Inferno, is the story of one man's journey through darkness and into the light.

~Finis--December 7th, 2003~

Copyright April French, 2003. All Rights Reserved.