Who is the girl??? - The Ninth Gate (2000) Discussion

[–] ghf23 19 years ago

The girl is Mesostopheles, it is said in Roman Catholic literature that after Lucifer fell from grace so did Mesostopheles follow and was offered by Lucifer to be his 2nd in command.

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[–] dm-60 19 years ago

Here's my take of it (partly answered earlier by others):

The girl is a devil sent to guide "worthy" individuals to the ninth gate. She admires Corso's qualities - his lack of scruples, his self-centeredness, and cynicism. She has "fallen in love" with him and acts as his guardian angel.

The Dumas Club, the book the film is based on, develops this romance further. That book itself is based on another book, The Devil In Love, written in French in the 1700s, in which a neophyte dabbler in black magic summons a demon, which falls in love with him and assumes the form of a woman in order to win him over.

Corso enters the Ninth Gate, attaining the immortality and power Balkan sought.
One of the strong points of the movie, IMHO, is that it does not attempt to depict the supernatural climax, or throw stereotypical demons/devils into the mix. That would have spoiled the effect.
Rather the devil you don't know...

danjam

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[–] calmcenteroftheuniverse 19 years ago

I didn't read every single post on the way down the list. And I'm not going to, for a few reasons, the most important being that this is a movie and everyone is going to draw from it what they will.

That said, I've spent a fair bit of time researching demonology and Christian mythology around the world (pick up the three books in Jeffrey Burton Russell's series about human understanding of evil and the Devil if this stuff interests you. It's dry, but worth reading.)

Anyhow, it seems that the whole "9 Gates" scenerio is a slightly more modern re-evaluation of old folk tales with a bit of Lovecraft thrown in. If you read Dracula (the novel by Bram Stoker) you'll catch two bits, in chapters 18 and 23 if I'm not mistaken. These two brief excerpts deal with Dracula's attendence of the Schoolmancer, look it up on Wikipedia.

"...the Scholomance, or school supposed to exist somewhere in the heart of the mountains, and where all the secrets of nature, the language of animals, and all imaginable magic spells and charms are taught by the devil in person. Only ten scholars are admitted at a time, and when the course of learning has expired and nine of them are released to return to their homes, the tenth scholar is detained by the devil as payment..."

By all accounts, the things you were ought at such a school allowed you to utilize certain elements of forgotten knowledge and things beyond regular human understanding - rather like being able to edit the code of a videogame. These "cheats" however, wouldn't allow you to break the laws of physics or other natural laws, just bend them a bit. It certainly wouldn't put you on par with God, and when Balkan references having absolute power, such as the Devil, he's a tad mistaken. Until Christianity came along, Lucifer/Satan was regarded as nothing more than a bookkeeper by Judiasm, and even most Christian theologians will tell you that the Devil's control over people extends only as far as you're willing to let it, and no further.

It seems likely that the 9th Gate is a metaphor for learning the "shortcuts" to life, similar to the Schoolmancer. So yes, you would attain what would seem to be extra-human abilities. I'm not sure that flying is one of them, but hey, we'll go with it.

As far as the girl goes, given that scenerio, it seems most likely that she's a representation of the Devil. Remember, the Devil is, at his best, two things: beautiful, and incessantly deceiving. The modern humanoid Devil with horns and a pitchfork is very much a contemporary creation. The most accurate idea I can come up with off the top of my head to give everyone a better sense of accuracy in terms of what generations past thought of the Devil would be similar to Michaelanglo's David; beautiful and slightly androgynous. Her character in this story seems to be far from subtle; in fact, I would argue that whoever she is, she violated some major principles of free will.

Anyhow, that's just my take on it. I wouldn't be surprised if few others knew anything about the Schoolmancer itself anyhow.

PS. If you are going to look that term up on Wikipedia, it needs to be spelled Scholomance. In this article I've written it how it is correctly pronounced in English.

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[–] bickelski-1 19 years ago

I often find myself immediately apprehensive when anyone is quick to cite their high level of study. Many poeple "study" english for 12 years in public schools and can still barely write a sentence. Especially when studying demonology is a slippery slope at best, the most you can hope to study are the "thoughts" of others as there is a significant lack of hard evidence which to study, and therefore we find ourselves beset by mad men, and charlatans, with the occasional hald sane acedemic thrown in.

It seems to me that according to christian mythology (oh my greatly educated in christian mythology friend) it would be highly unlikely that the girl is the devil

rather it seems flat out impossible...She rides the beast, why dont you study a little more and get back to me on what riding the beast signifies, there is a specific person who rides the beast, and it is not the devil...go study some more, and and slow your mouth until your knowledge can catch up to it...

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[–] artemis_moon 19 years ago

since i know close to nothing about christian mythology, you're gonna have to spell it out for me. who do you think the girl is?

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise

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[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] artemis_moon 19 years ago

as in adam's first wife? interesting theory, i've never heard that one before.

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise

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[–] kpryde-1 18 years ago

LOL! Lilith wasn't vampire you dolt. Lilith is a female Mesopotamian night demon believed to harm male children. She is often identified as the first wife of Adam and sometimes thought to be the mother of all incubi and succubi, a legend that arose in the Middle Ages. Stop reading modern fiction and quoting it as historical fact.

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[–] acidindustrieshq 19 years ago

i think the girl is the first person who tried the ritual.
in the engraving you see her on that beast reading from the book.
she has succeded in performing the ritual a long time ago , she received the powers balkan was talking about.
why she was helping corso , well i guess eternity can be a lonely place.
she wanted a partner. so she helps him.
this is just my personal oppinion

all the best

-Matt

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[–] edgio60 19 years ago

The book suggests that the girl is the (or a) devil.

I think she's there to protect the candidate she had her money on all along (Corso).

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[–] king_of_bob 18 years ago

No, it doesn't. If anything it suggests she's the whore of babalon, as she's the one that rides the beast, not the(or a) devil.

Two wrongs don't make a left hand turn.

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[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] simplypm2004 19 years ago

There are really only three figures.

The Girl - Courso - and everyone else.

The girl represents Lucifer's ambition to bring the prophetic content of the book to actualization through Courso.

Everyone else is a figure in the book. They don't grow or change, they simply live out their destiny.

Courso has to choose his destiny and become the ending. The girl does everything to help him do what he has already decided to do. She will stop him from doing the harmful (I won't say wrong, but harmful to her aims), but never pushes him to choose her aims.

Early on Courso clearly shows that he is absolutely a-moral. "You work for money?" He is asked. "What else?" is his reply. But there IS something else. This is where he has to grow. (If you could call it that). "You are part of a game, and you are starting to like it", she advises him.

The girl never really gives him straight answers. She answers all his questions in a way to confirm what he already knows or already wants, or sometimes she becomes evasive since the answer would reveal too much (What is your name?), or too little (Are you a student?).

You will notice that the girl chooses the ambience of Fargas' dead body in the pool while waiting for Courso to retrieve what is left of the burned book from the house, and she takes inward delight that he (Courso) can pistol whip someone to death. She even praises him, "I didn't think you had it in you." (He's got it in him all right.)

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[–] martin-hardens-1 19 years ago

There are two alternative interpretations of Corso’s nature:

1.
Corso = Chosen One to achieve Illumination / sufficiently evil, but with enough good in him to make it a challenge to corrupt him completely / passes through all gates.

Girl = Devil / has Green eyes / does not let him stop Balkan killing Mme de Saint Martin / appears to Corso as a dog in Paris / looks pleased when Corso kills the albino ("I didn't know you had it in you") / The Whore of Babylon / shows Corso where to find the last engraving / Her face becomes distorted as she has sex with Corso (showing her diabolic nature).

2.
Corso = Lucifer / fallen angel that has wandered the earth since the death of Torchia, the book printer; (but this would require that Lucifer was reincarnated through the ages into Corso).

Girl = witch because only Satan can make a witch bleed & she gets a nose bleed after Corso hits her accidentally (this is actually the strongest circumstantial argument for the theory that Corso is Lucifer, however, it is actually invalidated by an alternative ) scene of the tussle between Corso and the Albino on the quay of the Seine, where it is actually the Albino that gives her a nose bleed - see the deleted scenes on the DVD / she couples with the devil.

I personally think that alternative 1 makes moste sense. What about you?

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[–] artemis_moon 19 years ago

first makes more sense to me, find it hard to believe that Corso is supposed to be the devil

I, When in good humor, Give grass its green, Blazon sky blue, and endow the sun with gold