User blog:AustinDR/PE Proposal: Man of Wealth and Taste

Another song candidate. This one comes from The Rolling Stones album Beggars Banquet. From their first title in the album Sympathy for the Devil, we have Satan himself.

Who is he? What has he done?
The Devil is the villain protagonist of the song "Sympathy for the Devil." In it, the Devil giddily reminiscences on his actions in history ranging from manipulating Pontius Pilate into sentencing Jesus to death; recounting how he saw that Russia needed new leadership thus causing the October Revolution and the execution of the Romanov family; he incites kings and queens into waging war with each other to his sadistic pleasure; and ultimately takes pride in his corruption of humanity. The whole point of the song is that while the Devil acknowledges that he is evil, he places mankind on the same pedestal of depravity.

Throughout the song, the Devil attempts to appear as a gentleman, a "man of great wealth and tastes." But despite this, underneath the veil, he is actually a spiteful being who plans on laying waste on the souls of anyone who displeased him.

Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors?
Despite the ironic name of the song, the Devil is not painted in a sympathetic light. From him describing loving the smell of the rotten corpses in one of his crimes to reminiscing about the screams of those he had killed, the Devil is painted as a sadistic abomination. In the song, he does try to justify his actions as not being "bad" because since he and mankind were both free to commit atrocities, he thought it only fair to play along.

Heinous standard
Manipulated several events in human history which resulted in several deaths and other tragedies.

Verdict
Thoughts?